mythología | Julie Buffalohead, Yeni Mao, Emiljia Škarnulyté

June 13 – July 18, 2025

mythología explores the various ways artists weave myths and narratives into their creations. The exhibition features paintings by Julie Buffalohead, sculptures by Yeni Mao, and video installations by Emilija Škarnulytė. 

Julie Buffalohead, born in 1972 in Minneapolis, creates expressive paintings that reflect on contemporary issues, Native American history, and her personal experiences. Through her figurative works, she employs metaphor and humor to illustrate interactions, often focusing on women. In her art, animal figures such as coyotes, deer, geese, and hares emerge as pivotal characters in the creation of worlds. These playful yet mysterious animal guides connect the earthly with the spiritual, serving as symbols of protection and transformation. With a cast of animal protectors, Buffalohead unveils fresh perspectives on kinship and the act of creation. 

Yeni Mao, born in 1971 in Guelph, Canada, is a Chinese-American sculptor residing in Mexico City. Through his  use of assemblages and architectural configurations of found, crafted, or sculpted materials, Mao delves into themes of otherness, control, and order. His sculptures resonate with references to subcultures, countercultures, and marginalized groups, whether these are enforced or self-imposed due to social, racial, sexual, or transnational identities. With a visceral approach, Yao’s works call attention to our intrinsic animalistic nature, notably in pieces that feature cow tongues—reminders of our own physicality and potential connection to either real or imagined beings. Mao examines these dualities in the context of awareness and perception. 

Emilija Škarnulytė, a nomadic artist and filmmaker born in 1987 in Vilnius, utilizes film and immersive installations to probe the cosmic, geological, ecological, and political aspects of both documentary and fictional narratives. Her work "Tethys," showcased at La Citadelle in Villefranche-sur-Mer as part of the Saison de la Lituanie en France 2024, prompts viewers to rethink the connections between the artificial and the natural, the cosmic and the earthly, myth and reality. The title references the inscription above the fortress entrance, "Tethys," which alludes to an ancient Greek sea goddess and a primordial sea that existed long before present-day continents took shape. In the film, Škarnulytė embodies the mermaid chimera, navigating the azure waters and the ruins submerged beneath. While the mermaid is a recurring motif in her work, here she symbolizes Tethys, representing an ancient force linked to both the ocean and swirling galaxies, bridging the gap between a distant past and a post-human future.

mythologia invites us to traverse the boundaries between myth and reality, to explore a world where the lines between different realms are fluid, constantly shifting and evolving.

Julie Buffalohead (b. 1972, Minneapolis) received her BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and her MFA from Cornell University. She is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships including the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, Lillian Orlowsky and William Freed Grant, Guggenheim Fellowship, Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant, and the McKnight Foundation Fellowship for Visual Arts. She has had solo exhibitions at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts; Denver Art Museum; Highpoint Center for Printmaking, Minneapolis; the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Santa Fe, NM; and the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, New York. Her work is in the collections of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Denver Art Museum; Davis Museum, Wellesley, MA; Field Museum, Chicago; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO; Eiteljorg Museum, Indianapolis, IN; Detroit Institute of Arts, MI; Weatherspoon Art Museum, University of North Carolina, Greensboro; Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT; among others. Buffalohead is a member of the Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma. She lives and works in St. Paul, MN.

Yeni Mao (b. 1971 Guelph, Canada) is a Chinese-American sculptor based in Mexico City. He received a BFA from The School of Art Institute of Chicago, and subsequently trained in foundry work in California, and the architectural industries of New York. Mao’s work has been featured in numerous international exhibitions. Most recently, Mao presented the solo ex- hibitions Innumerable Fires at Campeche in Mexico City, An array of disruptions and codependencies at Brooke Bening- ton in London, Freemartins curated by Essence Harden at Frieze Focus with Make Room LA, vol. 3: chimera at guadalajara90210 in Guadalajara, Yerba Mala at Campeche in Mexico City, I desire the strength of nine tigers at Fier- man Gallery in New York, and a public sculpture with Brooke Benington in Canary Wharf, London. Among the many group exhibitions he has participated in are La Casa Erosionada at Museo Anahuacalli in Mexico City, Evening Shadow at Make Room in Los Angeles, Otrxs Mundxs at Museo Tamayo in Mexico City, The Disorganized Body at Zeller van Almsick in Vienna and The Hearing Trumpet at Galerie Marguo in Paris; and The IX Bienal De Artes Vi- suales Nicaraguenses in Nicaragua. Mao is a recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant 2021. Mao’s work has been written about in Art in America, The New York Times, Time Out New York, The Advocate, and The Village Voice.

Emilija Škarnulytė (b. 1987, Vilnius) is a Lithuanian-born nomadic artist and filmmaker. She received an undergraduate degree from the Brera Academy of Art in Milan and holds a masters from the Tromsø Academy of Contemporary Art. She most recently presented work at the Louisiana MOMA, Palais de Tokyo, Villa Medici, Gwangju Biennale, Helsinki Biennale. Recent solo exhibitions include: Kunsthall Trondheim, Canal Projects, Kunsthaus Göttingen. Škarnulytė’s films are in the collections of the Centre Pompidou, Kadist Foundation, Kiasma, Fondazione in between Art and FIlm, IFA, HAM, FRAC Corsica, MO Museum, and private collections. Prizes awarded to her in- clude the 2023 Ars Fennica Award and the 2019 Future Generation Art Prize. She represented Lithuania at the XXII Triennale di Milano and participated in the Baltic Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale. Her works have been screened at the Tate Modern and Serpentine Gallery in London, Centre Pompidou in Paris, Museum of Modern Art in New York, and numerous film festivals. She will have a solo exhibition at Tate St. Ives, St. Ives, UK in Autumn 2025.