Brittany Kiertzner

Arisawe, b. St. Regis Mohawk Reservation, NY, 1985

Brittany Kiertzner, who is a member of the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe, Iroquois Nation, integrates traditional weaving techniques into three-dimensional forms by piercing, pulling, and warping fiber over armatures composed of wire mesh, upholstery fabric, and plaster. The resultant forms are monolithic and totemic in their presence. Kiertzner holds a BFA from California State University, Fullerton. She has completed artist residencies at institutions such as Craft in America Center and Wonzimer WARP Los Angeles. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Benton Museum of Art, Pomona College, Sasse Museum of Art and in private collections nationally. She manages her studio in Los Angeles, California at Wonzimer.

Kiertzner’s materials, often sourced from or resembling degraded natural environments, become signifiers of both loss and endurance. In her work, she dwells on themes of cosmic order and interdependence. Aesthetic form becomes a vehicle for meditative inquiry grounded in Indigenous epistemologies that resist Western distinctions between the physical and the spiritual. Central to her practice is the recurring motif of the Teiotiokwaonhaston/the wampum circle, a sacred symbol within the Iroquois tradition. Kiertzner’s invocations of this form – visualized as tangent lines forming concentric geometries – become symbolic constellations linking the microcosm of human experience to the macrocosm of the universe. The subtle spiraling image references cycles of life, death, and rebirth.