Cal Poly Humboldt’s Goudi’ni Native American Arts Gallery presents Tintah: Amongst The Trails, works in wood and works on paper by Robert Benson. Exhibition runs October 5th through December 2nd, 2023.

Focusing on a new body of work, Tintah, Hupa language for amongst the trails, features newly carved salvaged old growth redwood sculptures, and watercolor studies. Robert Benson, Tsnungwe, is a leading figure among artists in the northwestern California art world. He worked as a well-respected teacher for more than 30 years at the College of the Redwoods in Eureka, California, as well as a curator of Native art. 

His current paintings and sculptures are filled with trails, literal and suggested. “There is the trail into our family hunting camp that I traveled for more than fifty years, there are trails handed down through stories and mythologies, and there are the trails of imagination. When we consider that at the most basic level a trail is just something connecting two points, even the ladder and stairway forms that populate my work can be viewed as kinds of trails. To be amongst the trails is to find your rhythm, your place, and to discover the interplay between that rhythm and the melody of the universe.” Benson states.