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Join Dyani White Hawk and Caroline Kent for a conversation on abstraction, feminism, and their overlapping artistic interests.

In her multidisciplinary practice, Dyani White Hawk (Sičáŋǧu Lakota) brings together Lakota artistic traditions with Minimalist, and Color Field artistic influences. Working across painting, sculpture, and print, Dyani White Hawk emphasizes how color, shape, pattern, and material can carry meaning. Her recent series They Gifted (Night) and They Gifted (Day), is on view in The Living Room at The Block from November 12 to December 14, 2025. Caroline Kent (Northwestern University, Art, Theory, and Practice) uses abstraction to explore the possibilities and limits of language. Her richly layered compositions speculate on communication and miscommunication, drawing attention to how meaning can shift across context and culture.

Together, White Hawk and Kent will discuss their artistic influences, conceptual frameworks, and the evolving role of abstraction as a space for cultural reflection, resistance, and reimagination. The evening will be introduced by Megan Baker, Assistant Professor of Anthropology.

Dyani White Hawk (Sičáŋǧu Lakota) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Minneapolis. White Hawk was featured in the 2022 Whitney Biennial and the recent solo exhibition Speaking to Relatives at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver and Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. She has received awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, Creative Capital, Anonymous Was a Woman, Joan Mitchell Foundation and McKnight Foundation. Her work can be found within collections such as the Guggenheim, Brooklyn Museum, Hirshhorn Museum, Minneapolis Institute of Art, MoMA, NY, Walker Art Center, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Caroline Kent is a Chicago-based visual artist. Kent speculates in both the potential and the limitations of language, and ultimately questions the modernist canon of abstraction. She earned an MFA at the University of Minnesota. She has exhibited widely at sites including the Walker Art Center, The Flag Art Foundation, the DePaul Art Museum, the California African American Museum, and Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Kent is a 2025 USA Fellow and received the 2025 Aspen Arts Prize for innovation in abstraction. She has received grants from The Pollock Krasner Foundation, The McKnight Foundation, and The Jerome Foundation. Kent is Assistant Professor of Art, Theory and Practice, at Northwestern University.

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