Collection: Collection No.2: The Magnificent 7

Editions

Set in a cinematic world, Jamie Hewlett’s latest print series presents a cast of seven characters, all based on real life figures. Entitled The Magnificent Seven, the figures occupy a fictive landscape that feels at once familiar and uncanny. In this collection Hewlett has disrupted the traditional codes of the Western movies he grew up with and allows us to chart our own course where power, beauty and morality are all open to debate. Who and what is magnificent about these seven is not for Hewlett to dictate, this cast of outsiders, icons, heroes and stars shape shift as they move through time and space. A loving homage from an artist long obsessed with this world, the terrain is rough and the ideas are open, welcome to the world of the Magnificent Seven.

Featuring: Billy The Kid, a notorious outlaw who won this name after starting his criminal career as a teenager. He boasted about his crimes but here is pensive and introspective. Dakota Fall, a warrior engaged in the Dakota War of 1862 - also known as the Sioux Uprising – is pictured with falling leaves and the downturned horse’s head which may signal impending defeat. Hollow Horn Bear stands proud as Chief Speaker and negotiator for the Lakota people and guest of both Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson in their Presidential inaugural parades. The Crossover is a focussed warrior who wears modern shirt with pistols and a rifle, a reference to early trading between indigenous people and the settlers. Zitkala turns away, a tireless activist for her people’s right to citizenship. A young woman, St Louis Missouri looks with pure honesty as if posing for photograph for the very first time. Finally, The Rider in a landscape who could be read as the poignant closing scene in this retelling of a cinematic realm.