Summer Rain: Addison Karl’s New Exhibition at Rainmaker Gallery in Bristol, UK
This May, I’ll be bringing a new body of work to Rainmaker Gallery in Bristol, UK — a space that has spent the past 35 years holding space for contemporary Native North American voices. Titled Summer Rain, the exhibition opens May 16, 2025, and marks a personal convergence of memory, process, and place.
Much like the name suggests, Summer Rain is both event and atmosphere. Every painted hatch mark in these works begins in shadow and climbs toward light — a gesture repeated, not in redundancy, but in rhythm. The repetition speaks of process. Of presence. Of persistence. Layer by layer, color by color, the paintings build a language — one drawn from screenprinting but rendered fully by hand.
But these aren’t landscapes in the colonial sense. There is no conquest here. These are meditations on place — impressions rooted in relation rather than ownership. From the desert heat of Arizona to the saturated greens of Oklahoma, each work hums with ancestral code and quiet stewardship. These are not mimicries of land but relationships with it — a practice of returning.
This exhibition is also deeply tied to memory — not just my own, but the collective memory of Nations. Alongside the paintings are ink drawings that render remembered cities: mound architecture reimagined through Mississippian visual language. These weren’t ruins. They were cosmologies. Cities shaped by ceremony, orientation, and power. Each spiral and line encodes a relationship — water, sun, serpent, sky. Symbol becomes structure.
These drawings aren’t speculative fiction. They’re rooted in history passed down and layered through generations — Chickasaw and Choctaw towns mapped into the land with precision and meaning. What once stood visible is now buried beneath time, but never lost.
Summer Rain isn’t nostalgia. It’s a ceremony. A convergence. A weather system made of color, memory, and place. These works remind us that even in silence, the land is still speaking — and sometimes, all it takes is rain to reawaken its knowledge systems.
“Summer Rain falls diagonally—like memory, like handwriting across earth. Each painted hatch mark begins in shadow and climbs toward light. The gesture is repetitive, not redundant. Built layer by layer, color by color, in a rhythm drawn from screenprinting but rendered by hand, these marks speak of process, presence, and persistence. The rain isn’t just a subject—it’s a method, an atmosphere, a way of returning.
The paintings are landscapes, but not in the colonial sense. There is no conquest here. These are meditations on place, filled with color theory and ancestral code. From the desert heat of Arizona to the saturated greens of Oklahoma, the works hum with the quiet resonance of stewardship. They are impressionistic, yes, but not in mimicry. They echo a different lineage—one rooted in land as relation, not resource.
The hatch marks—always top right to bottom left—are never arbitrary. They build not just an image, but a field of time. Each piece vibrates with simultaneous presence: the place as it looks, the place as it’s remembered, and the place as it’s held within Nations and Communities.
Paired with these landscapes are ink drawings of imagined yet remembered architecture. Mound cities, re-rendered with fluid geometry and Mississippian visual language. These weren’t ruins—they were cities. Cosmologies embedded into the built environment. The Four Directions set the floor plan. The Sun Circle crowns the roofline. Water spirals flow across walls like script. The Underwater Serpent curves beneath, anchoring it all to ceremony and power.
These drawings aren’t speculative. They’re rooted in collective memory—Chickasaw and Choctaw towns mapped into earth over centuries. Massive earthworks layered by hand, built in relationship with the sky and waters, shaped by meaning. Architecture and our Visual Arts become language. Symbol becomes structure.
Together, these two bodies of work offer a counter-narrative to the blank-slate mythology of North American landscapes. The painted environments are alive with atmosphere, motion, and reverence. The drawings show what has always been there—knowledge, structure, history—hidden beneath the surface but never lost.
“Summer Rain” is not nostalgia. It’s a convergence. A ceremony. A weather system made of color, memory, and place. It reminds us that even in silence, the land is still speaking—and sometimes, all it takes is rain to re-grow it’s knowledge systems.”
About Rainmaker Gallery:
If you’re unfamiliar with Rainmaker Gallery, you’re in for something rare. Founded by Joanne Prince in 1991, the gallery is one of the UK’s only spaces dedicated exclusively to contemporary Native North American Indigenous art. Located in Clifton, North Bristol, Rainmaker has long been a site of cultural exchange — bringing artists and audiences together through exhibitions, talks, workshops, and an ever-evolving collection of fine art, jewellery, and sculpture.
Rainmaker is not just a gallery — it’s a meeting place. A portal. A steady voice across the Atlantic, making space for nuance, complexity, and joy in Native creativity.
Summer Rain opens May 16, 2025
Rainmaker Gallery, 140 Whiteladies Rd, Clifton, Bristol BS8 2RS
www.rainmakerart.co.uk
Works will be on view and available through the gallery
