{"id":656618,"date":"2026-05-21T15:03:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T15:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/656618\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T15:03:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T15:03:10","slug":"new-residency-in-upstate-new-york-will-give-indigenous-artists-access-to-neon-fabrication-studio-the-art-newspaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/656618\/","title":{"rendered":"New residency in upstate New York will give Indigenous artists access to neon fabrication studio – The Art Newspaper"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Lite Brite Neon Studio<\/a>, a neon fabrication studio in Kingston, New York, is partnering with the Walker Youngbird Foundation<\/a> to launch Native Neon, an artist residency programme supporting Indigenous artists working with neon for the first time. The studio is known for its collaborations with artists like Glenn Ligon, Theaster Gates and Jeffrey Gibson, and has produced work for institutions including the Museum of Modern Art and the Dia Art Foundation.<\/p>\n

The multidisciplinary artist Sarah Rowe<\/a>, an enrolled member of the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska, who is also of Lakota descent, is the inaugural recipient of the residency and has been awarded $50,000, a $10,000 stipend and an approximately week-long residency. Rowe produces drawings, paintings and installations that emphasise light and scale, and has proposed creating an immersive environment that incorporates neon elements.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have always been fascinated by light and the idea of neon as a drawing with light,\u201d Rowe tells The Art Newspaper. \u201cI would love to see how my line work could translate to light itself, or how to use light as an actual medium for mark marking.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The artist Sarah Rowe will be the inaugural resident in the Native Neon programme Photo: Bill Sitzmann.<\/p>\n

Some of Rowe\u2019s recent projects include the 2025-26 solo exhibition Water Ledger<\/a> at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboyagan, Wisconsin, which brought together works exploring the ecological and cultural histories of waterways. Another is the 23,000-sq.-ft mural Starseeds<\/a> (2023) in Omaha, Nebraska, that transformed a series of grain silos with murals inspired by Indigenous themes and the landscape of Nebraska.<\/p>\n

The work produced in the residency will unfold naturally but will likely relate to the theme of the heyoka, a trickster figure in Lakota tradition and a recurring feature in Rowe\u2019s work, and use colour to challenge perception. Rowe plans to create a \u201climinal\u201d space that represents the \u201crealm of the trickster\u201d, she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ignorance of a process is somewhat of a superpower\u2014to not know too much about it or get too wrapped up in the technical side of it,\u201d she adds. \u201cWe\u2019re talking about a design idea or a creature that could be transformed into light.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Sarah Rowe, For My Fleabitten Diamond, 2022 Courtesy of Great Plains Art Museum<\/p>\n

Lite Brite Neon was founded in 1999 in Brooklyn and moved its primary fabrication operations to a 15,000-sq.-ft facility upstate in 2017. It seeks to democratise neon as a medium, which is famously an expensive and technically specialised material.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a substantial barrier to entry for neon,\u201d says Reid Walker, founder of the Walker Youngbird Foundation. \u201cWe wanted to find a way to not only pull back the curtain and demystify the process, but also to show Native artists how they can add this to their portfolio.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walker has served on the National Gallery of Art\u2019s collectors committee and the Tate\u2019s North American acquisitions committee, and serves on the board of the Phillips Collection. Through these experiences, he saw a persistent gap in the representation of Indigenous artists.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need someone in these rooms to help move the ball forward,\u201d he says. \u201cThere are many artists coming from tribal areas that didn\u2019t have the same opportunities as others.\u201d<\/p>\n

The foundation\u2019s collaboration with Lite Brite Neon developed over several years, beginning when the foundation acquired Shared Horizon (Keepers of the Eastern Door) (2024) by the Seneca artist Marie Watt<\/a>, a neon work fabricated at the studio. Watt also served as the primary adviser for the inaugural residency.<\/p>\n

\u201cRowe\u2019s multidisciplinary practice and site-immersive projects made her stand out immediately as uniquely poised to translate her ideas into neon,\u201d Watt says. \u201cThe residency brings together two organisations doing important work not just to support artists, but to bring about social change, and she is exactly the kind of artist this programme was built for.\u201d<\/p>\n

The residency programme will begin in September and there are plans to exhibit the finished work in either an indoor or outdoor space in the nearby area.<\/p>\n