Virtual Art Tour

Paul Pletka, American, born 1946

Hidastsa

Born in San Diego, Paul Pletka is painting the subject matter he has been fascinated with since childhood - Native Americans. Pletka was educated at Arizona State University in Phoenix and at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. His works of art have been exhibited in one-man shows in Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Illinois, New York, Kansas and Missouri continuously since 1964. Pletka's paintings are in more than 40 private and public art collections including the Albany Museum of Art, Albany, GA; Hallmark Cards, Kansas City, MO; Mel Pfaelzer Collection, University of Northern Illinois, De Kalb; the Norton Gallery & School of Art, West Palm Beach, FL; and the United States Department of Interior, Washington, D.C.

In an interview for ART-TALK, Pletka said, "When I was a youngster and first enchanted with Indian costume, lore and artifacts, I would sometimes pretend I was an Indian. I soon realized that was not intellectually reasonable. I am not an Indian. I am simply an interpreter." Pletka does constant research on the late 19th century Indians and meticulously depicts accurate information in his paintings. One example of his attention to detail can be seen in the beadwork of the U.S. flag in "Hidatsa." His work has been given the label Neo-Surrealist. But, no matter what the label is, Pletka challenges the viewer with his accuracy in detail, his convincing historical and cultural references, and his subject's frontal confrontations.

"Hidatsa is a tribe of Northern Plains Indians that now live in North Dakota near Fort Berthold," according to Pletka. "The Indian in the painting is in front of a dance enclosure. 'Hidatsa' was painted during my American flag fascination. While Native Americans are very patriotic, they use and carry the American flag for more than patriotic reasons. The color and design of the flag also appeal to them. The flag uses bright colors and symbols that are similar to Native American symbols." When asked about the disproportionately large hands found in his paintings, Pletka replied, "Frankly, there are two reasons. One is that I found hands to be difficult for me to do. So, I started focusing on them in order to do a really good job. The more I focused on them the bigger they became. The other is that my family has large hands. If I see hands that are normal size, it bothers me . . . . It is just the way I see things."

Gallery 10 of Scottsdale, AZ, wrote, "Pletka has a near reverence for detail. Through such detail, the paintings reverberate with emotional meanings . . . . For Pletka, even the most grim details are seen as ennobling. The bizarre, the grotesque and the magical, all merge with ceremonies to lead to something essentially different from our first response to them. They are part of the life-sustaining elements of a primitive tradition that undiluted by the customs of the 20th century, once were an integral part of the Southwestern Native American Life . . . . Pletka's purpose is to bring us as closely as possible into an involvement with his understanding of the spiritualism of the Indian world view."