Yatika Fields

Rapture $ Woe

Yatika Starr Fields, an Osage, Cherokee, and Creek painter who grew up in Oklahoma, painted Rapture $ Woe after the 2019 fire at Notre-Dame in Paris. Fields broadly describes his work as capturing the essence of memories and feelings. His paintings are often left open for interpretation. Rapture $ Woe channels powerful emotions evoked by the fire. In his signature style, a blizzard of multicolored brushstrokes and color mimics a wild blaze. Fields states that the main subject of the painting, a catlike figure, could be seen as igniting or extinguishing the flames. After the fire in Paris, an outpouring of Indigenous communities lamented the media’s attention to it. Many pointed out the concern given to Notre-Dame paled in comparison to the continual desecration of Indigenous sacred lands. Feelings about the destruction of the fire are ultimately left open to the viewer. The painting serves as a way to process such conflicting emotions.