James Bama

Black Elk´s Great Grandson, 
Limited Edition Giclee' Canvas Image size: 20"w x 20"h.
Edition Size:100
$750.00

Contemporary Sioux Indian, LIMITED EDITION CANVAS
Image size: 30"w x 20"h.
Edition Size:150
                      $950.00
     Clifton DeSerca, a Sioux, lives and works in the modern world but has strong ties to the last days of the free-roaming horseback Native American of the plains. His great-grandfather was Black Elk, a Sioux holy man whose autobiography is considered one of the most important pieces of Native American literature. As a young man, Black Elk participated in the battle of the Little Big Horn. In his older years, he told his story to John G. Neihardt who translated it into the classic Black Elk Speaks. DeSerca serves his people by being involved in a reservation outreach program working with alcoholics. He is portrayed here wearing a Sioux headdress and a historic shirt from the trading-post period. The distinctive portraits of James Bama have earned him the respect of art collectors and critics worldwide. The focus of Contemporary Sioux Indian is Oglala Sioux Wendy Irving, a modern-day Indian whose choker necklace, ribbon shirt and braids wrapped in otter skin indicate that he clings to the traditions of his people, yet finds himself caught between two worlds. To give the painting a contemporary flavor Bama placed him against a peeling wall that warns, "No Parking, Violators Towed Away," suggesting that the Indian does not fit in the white man's affluent neighborhood." These are sophisticated young Indians, very aware of what is going on," says Bama." They are not about to sit back passively and endure injustices. They seem limited in what they can do other than become educated and find a niche in the white man's world where their old ways have been accorded little or no place."
 

Bittin Up-Rimrock Ranch
Image size: 20"w x 20"h.
Edition Size:150
 $695.00
Prints Sold Out


Young Plains Indian, LIMITED EDITION CANVAS
Image size: 24"w x 24"h.
Edition Size:150
$950.00
Print Sold Out
    At Wyoming’s Rimrock Ranch, cowboys and their horses look much the way they did back in the Wild West of Laramie and Cheyenne. Scouting for portrait models, artist James Bama first met ranch hand Greg Laughen in the summer, when the young man’s hat, shirt and jeans were still crisp and new. At the time, Bama offered to take his picture, but the cowboy didn’t feel right – he thought he looked too much like a city slicker. By December, Laughen’s clothes were broken in enough that he felt ready to be photographed. He was teaching a young buckskin its first lessons in responding to the rein. Shortly, he would lead the horse by its makeshift rope bridle into the corral to prepare him for “bittin’ up,” taking the bit without rearing its head. Patiently, the ranch hand has taught the buckskin to take the saddle and to keep calm when men approach. Now his student is ready for a new lesson in horse sense.

 
     The distinctive portraits of the contemporary West and its traditional culture have earned James Bama the respect of art collectors and critics worldwide. There is no mistaking the texture found in a Bama painting; whether skin, stone, cloth or leather, the detail speaks volumes about the lives of the artist’s subjects. “I saw this young man in the grand entry at a Crow Fair and photographed him during a moment when the parade halted,” Bama explains of Young Plains Indian. “I was struck by the symbolism of the wings tied across the brave’s back, making him look like a messenger of death with the feather in his hair crossing the wings as a counterpoint. The combination of outfit with dramatic attitude was a happy accident, as most Indians today don’t have quite the look of those photographed around the turn of the twentieth century. But this brave could have been living in 1879. It is something you could never get in a pose—the look in his eye was positively mesmerizing.”