Hiding Out in North Country

 October 5, 2021.

The faces in David Kanietakeron Fadden’s paintings grab you immediately, they are full of joy and kinetic energy.  I was able to interview David at the Six Nations Iroquois Cultural Center  in Onchiota, New York, where many of his paintings are currently on exhibit. David, who is an Akwesasne Mohawk and whose name Kanietakeron means Patches of Snow,   helped me understand how attaining this skill to portray such emotion had been a process.  He remembers the moment that he was leaving the Metropolitan Museum of art, and nearly out the door when he saw in one of the last rooms, a portrait of Benjamin Franklin. Although David had already been painting for many years, he felt that portraying expression and human anatomy were eluding him.  When he saw the paint strokes, reflections of color on the skin, and softness of Franklin’s portrait at the Met, he described the moment as “jaw dropping,” and it inspired him to learn how to accomplish the same. For David, painting faces full of  life a