De-ka-xeen Mehner is a man who has always had to walk in two worlds.
Mehner is white and native, an artist and a laborer. The artist in him requires both visual and tactile stimulation, and he is both a photographer and a sculptor.
Occasionally, he combines the two skills.
He created a series of masks with family members in mind. The faces are comical or warrior-like and have a great deal of personality. For his show, which started Monday, he is displaying the photos of the mask being worn and the carved wood pieces.
"The photos [are] displayed so that you're looking at the photo of the mask, and the mask is hung above, looking back at you, creating a dialogue between the three elements," Mehner says.
Mehner will be the first Native to get an master's degree in Native Arts at UAF. His thesis exhibition, "Reinterpretations," is about how Mehner is trying to start writing history from the native perspective.
"The way that natives have been represented in the past is from an outsider's view," he says. "I want to change that."
He uses his art as a tool of self-exploration. As he creates, he learns more about himself and more about the things that are important to him.
Another part of his exhibit is photographs of clippings he has trimmed from his beard over the last 10 or so years.
His beard is rather fascinating. Thanks to a unique birthmark, half of it grows white. The other half is a black that is alternately bleached by the summer sun or remains as dark as winter nights.
One piece by Mehner features a layered photo of his bi-colored beard and his Bureau of Indian Affairs card, which proclaims him seven-sixteenths native. It is currently on display at the Alaska State Museum in Juneau, where it won an award in 2006.
The piece, called "7/16th," is about coming to terms with what it means to be native in this country, which means examining your own identity and not letting the federal government measure you with a piece of paper.
Mehner, 36, was born Fairbanks to parents that were German-Irish and Tlingit-Nishga.
He grew up splitting his time between the local forests and Anchorage.
He left Alaska after high school and went on an artistic journey of self-discovery. He attended school in Santa Fe and California, developing his art and trying to ascertain what being native really meant.
He decided to be part of a gallery in New Mexico that was managed by the artists themselves. The project eventually went bankrupt, leaving him disillusioned and deeply in debt. Mehner decided to abandon art altogether and return to Fairbanks where he worked construction for several years.
Mehner's return to the arts was a result of the discovery of the UAF Native Arts Program.
"[I was] wooed back to the arts through the Native Arts Department, where I found place, purpose, community and acceptance," Mehner says.
During his study of Tlingit art and culture, he discovered a fascination with the warrior and the alluring shape of pre-contact knives, which is a form that occurs frequently as both a design element and as a symbol.
Mehner has a piece which reflects his ideas about the war in Iraq. "Weapon of Oil" is a glass table with a dagger-sized depression that can be filled with oil.
The sword shape has many implications including the double-edged nature of combat.
He also has several pieces, heavily influenced by his experience in construction, that combine native designs and modern mediums of steal and concrete.
"I am constantly wondering if the meaning is being read the way I intended it to be," he says. "But I think that's what art is. Artists are always trying to play with the line between poetic and instructional. You don't want to be boring but at the same time you don't want to be so illusive people have no idea what is going on."
"Reinterpretations" will be in the UAF Fine Arts Gallery from Feb. 26 to March 16.
