PRESENTATION: Chelsea Bighorn-A Bead at a Time

There is a particular cadence to the work of Chelsea Bighorn. It is found not only in the rustle of jingle cones or the sway of fringe but in the quiet, deliberate rhythm of repetition—bead by bead, pleat by pleat. Her debut with de boer gallery, “A Bead at a Time”, brings together a new body of large-scale textile works that foreground the artist’s distinctive synthesis of material, memory, and cultural inheritance .

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: de boer Gallery Archive

Born and raised in Tempe, Arizona, Bighorn is of Lakota, Dakota, and Shoshone-Paiute heritage, with Irish American roots . This mixed ancestry is not merely biographical data but the very engine of her practice. She rejects the reductive question of “what are you?” that marked her upbringing, instead translating the tension and beauty of a “mixed house” into visual form . By merging the visual language of powwow regalia with elements drawn from her Irish background—including the traditional brat coat—Bighorn creates a hybrid aesthetic that honors both lineages without collapsing their distinctions .

Working across canvas, dye, beadwork, and found materials—including glass beads, brass sequins, leather, horsehair, and porcupine quills—Bighorn constructs richly layered surfaces that operate between painting and textile . Her works resist fixed categorization, instead occupying a space where image, object, and adornment converge. Across the exhibition, densely worked compositions such as *Leonid* (2024), *CMYK* (2024), and *Triple Point* (2025) unfold as both abstract fields and embodied forms, their tactile complexity emphasizing the labor and temporality embedded in their making.

Movement is latent in every piece. Bighorn has described her practice as an act of revisiting formative experiences, particularly attending powwows with her grandmother and sister . The choreography of the dance floor translates into her suspended fringes and beaded surfaces, while the inclusion of jingle cones—traditionally found on jingle dresses—introduces an auditory dimension. These cones, which Bighorn sometimes hand-builds from recycled soda cans, carry the weight of history . For much of the twentieth century, ceremonial dancing was banned by the federal government; dressmakers and dancers kept the practice alive at great personal risk. The soft sound of metal against metal is thus a sound of resilience, a quiet insistence on survival .

At the core of Bighorn’s work is an engagement with memory as both personal and collective. In works such as *Reconciliation* (2025) and *Ease the Burden* (2025), repetition and accumulation function as methods of remembrance, with each bead or gesture contributing to a larger system of meaning that unfolds over time. Her recent recognition as a 2026 recipient of the Emerging Native Arts Grant from the Walker Youngbird Foundation will allow her to push this language further—transforming her signature pleated canvases into more architectural, sculptural forms that draw equally from Native garments and the urban landscape of Chicago, where she currently lives and works .

What distinguishes Bighorn’s practice is her refusal to let tradition become static. She is not preserving a relic but activating a living language—one that breathes, moves, and accumulates meaning with every bead applied. “A Bead at a Time” is an exhibition about patience, hybridity, and the radical act of claiming one’s full identity. In Bighorn’s hands, the canvas becomes a site where memory is stitched into the present, and where adornment is never merely decorative—it is a form of knowledge.

Photo: Chelsea Bighorn, Triple Point, 2025, canvas, dye, glass beads, artificial sinew, and jingle cones, 105 x 128 in. / 267 x 325 cm, © Chelsea Bighorn, Courtesy the artist and de boer Gallery

Info: de boer Gallery, 3311 E. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA, USA, Duration: 18/4-30/5/2026, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-17:00, https://deboergallery.com/