The painter is a shaman--throwing images on the walls to give us power over our reality.

Art started out as a learning tool. Drawings that depicted the hunt taught everyone in the tribe what to look for in a successful hunt. The artist, the Shaman had the power to improve the likelihood of a successful hunt. What we today call positive visualization, to primitive people would have been magic.
Even in the almost schematic depiction of hunts and battles found on leather hides, there exists power to overcome the unknown. The frightening masks representing demons and gods were an attempt to control some of that power.

I am exploring the power in Native American art works.

I fluctuate between an illusionist narrative style and an abstract none representational style. One allows me to bring up and exhibit stories, history, even images pulled from the unconscious. The other frees me to explore colors, forms, methods for showing movement and rhythms in the visual two dimensions.
I am looking for shapes and symbols that evoke emotion. I have been searching through history and locales around the world to find images that have a power to move me.

While the art of the primitive is always of a practical nature, art depicting animals, is of a more specifically external reality. A reality turned toward action.
A mask is more of an emotional object. Emotions represent power that is out of this world to the primitive.