THis is a must see exhibition if your in the area or can make a special trip!!!!!.
Opening Nov. 18, 2026, in the Mary LeFlore Clements Oklahoma Gallery, Raven Halfmoon: Flags of Our Mothers brings larger-than-life ceramic sculptures to Oklahoma Contemporary.
Raven Halfmoon: Flags of Our Mothers is the first major traveling exhibition for Halfmoon. This exhibition is organized by The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum and Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts. Halfmoon was commissioned by both institutions for the exhibition to create some of her largest works to date, including Flagbearer, a three-part stacked ceramic sculpture standing over 12 feet tall.
Halfmoon’s practice spans torso-scaled and colossal-sized glazed stoneware sculptures, with their enormous scale and visual power opposing existing stereotypes and biases to create new monuments that honor the artist’s Caddo Nation ancestors and their traditions, including her elders from whom she learned about ceramics as a teenager. Inspiration stems from ancient Indigenous pottery, the colossal Olmec stone heads in Mexico, the Moai statues on Easter Island and the major earth mounds her Caddo ancestors erected as temples, tombs and residences for tribal leaders and priests. Halfmoon fuses Caddo pottery traditions — a history of making mostly done by women — with more contemporary gestures, often tagging her work as a reference to Caddo tattooing and ancient pottery motifs. Her works reflect stories of the Caddo Nation, specifically her feminist lineage and the power of its complexities.
“Oklahoma Contemporary is honored to present Flags of Our Mothers, a powerful and deeply resonant exhibition by Raven Halfmoon. This body of work carries a remarkable sense of presence, both physically and culturally, grounding contemporary sculpture in the enduring strength of Caddo traditions while pushing boldly into new forms of expression,” said Oklahoma Contemporary Executive Director Trent Riley. “This exhibition speaks to lineage, identity and the complexities of history with a force that is at once intimate and commanding. We are especially grateful to Art Bridges for their partnership in helping bring this important exhibition to Oklahoma. It is a privilege to welcome this work home, where Raven’s story began, and to share her extraordinary vision with our community.”
Working mainly in portraiture and hand building each work using a coil method, her surfaces are expressive and show deep finger impressions and dramatic dripping glazes — a physicality that presents her as both maker and matter. Her specific palette matches both the clay bodies she selects and the glazes she fires with: reds, after the Oklahoma soil and the blood of murdered Indigenous women; blacks, referencing the natural clay native to the Red River; and buff creams. Oftentimes she stacks and repeats imagery, creating totemic forms that represent herself and her maternal ancestry while also referencing the multiplicities that exist inside all of us. Flags of Our Mothers is a tribute to the matriarchs in her life and all the Indigenous women, who over many centuries, have created and endured, keeping their stories and traditions present, active and alive.
Raven Halfmoon: Flags of Our Mothers is co-curated by Bemis Center’s Chief Curator and Director of Programs Rachel Adams and The Aldrich’s Chief Curator Amy Smith-Stewart. The exhibition is on loan from Art Bridges. Flags of Our Mothers will be on view at Oklahoma Contemporary from Nov. 18, 2026, to May 24, 2027.
About the Artist
Raven Halfmoon is an artist and sculptor from Norman, Oklahoma. She is a citizen of the Caddo Nation and also Choctaw, Delaware, and Otoe Missouria. Halfmoon holds a double bachelor’s degree from the University of Arkansas, where she majored in ceramics/painting and cultural anthropology.
Halfmoon’s sculptures are in the permanent collections of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art; the Detroit Institute of Arts; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; and the Montclair Art Museum. In 2023, she was selected as an Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellow (Eiteljorg Museum, Indianapolis, IN), and in 2024, she was a finalist for the international Loewe Craft Prize (Loewe Foundation, Madrid, Spain).
Halfmoon is represented by Kouri + Corrao Gallery in Santa Fe, NM, and by Ross + Kramer Gallery in New York, NY. Salon 94 represented her for her solo exhibition in September 2024.
Image: Raven Halfmoon: Flags of Our Mothers (installation view), The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, June 25, 2023, to January 7, 2024. Photo by Jason Mandella.
Learn more: okcontemp.org
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