RAPID CITY, SD (April 1, 2025) – Driven by curiosity, Rapid City native and accomplished artist Marty Two Bulls Jr. applied for the 2024 Artist-in-Residence program at the Sanford Underground Research Laboratory (SURF) in Lead. Now, he’s eager to showcase where that curiosity has taken him through his exhibit, Inyan Wakan—Lakota for “holy rock”—at the South Dakota Mines APEX Gallery.
Marty Two Bulls Jr., an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, will present an artist talk with Q&A at 1 p.m. Friday, April 4, followed by an artist’s reception from 4 – 6 p.m. Both events will take place at the APEX gallery in the university’s Classroom Building, Room 200.
“I was very intentional in bringing this show to the APEX and being able to engage with the students at Mines. They are the future engineers and scientists,” Two Bulls said.
Matthew Whitehead, director of the APEX gallery and senior lecturer, has been a fan of Two Bulls’ work since moving to the area in 2018. “While I was initially drawn to the visual aesthetics of his work, I found myself equally intrigued by the cultural, spiritual and deeply personal nature of the subject matter,” Whitehead said. “Marty’s artwork represents a beautiful blend of contemporary practices and cultural traditions, utilizing a wide range of artistic media to convey a specific set of conceptual ideas related to his personal life experience.”
Two Bulls comes from a family of diverse artists. His first art instructor was his father, Marty Two Bulls Sr., an accomplished artist and cartoonist.
“This has been a passion of mine since I was a kid,” he said.
Two Bulls grew up in his father’s studio where he learned the fundamentals of sculpture, illustration and graphic design. He eventually went on to study printmaking and ceramics at The Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Following graduation in 2011, he spent several years in Santa Fe developing his art practice and working in art galleries alongside contemporary artists from around the world. After returning home in 2017, Two Bulls became a full-time faculty member at Oglala Lakota College, where he started a graphic design program.
Two Bulls is an interdisciplinary artist drawing for a variety of disciplines, including painting, ceramic, printmaking, and sculptural techniques, to create new and innovative ways of expression. “I allow the ideas to guide the medium rather than the other way around,” he said.
During his time at SURF, Two Bulls immersed himself in both the surface and underground spaces, forging connections with scientists and delving into the cutting-edge research happening there. He also took part in the Center for Theoretical Physics conference (CETUP), where he engaged with physicists from around the world. The experience inspired a powerful artistic vision—one that brings SURF’s history to life and honors the people shaping its legacy through his compelling new exhibit.
“I think the exchange of ideas is what really sparked my creativity – the minds that are at SURF and the passion for their disciplines,” Two Bulls said.
The exhibit is primarily mixed media works on paper. The framed objects include layers of paper stab bound together that feature photographs, drawings, symbols, lettering, and that are all rendered with charcoal, lithograph, and other mediums. The pieces show both symbols important to Lakota culture and math, chemistry, and physics equations pertinent to the ongoing research at SURF. Some of the upper layers have shaped cutouts that allow the viewer to see the layers below.
“I wanted that depth and dimensionality to these works,” Two Bulls said. Part of that depth includes a Japanese book binding process that stiches the layered artworks together. “I was kind of thinking of these pieces almost like books. Books of knowledge. If they weren’t framed, you could pull them out and page through. But inside the closed frames, some of the things drawn here are obscured,” he said.
The exhibit also includes two-person car benches that were once part of an underground locomotive at SURF, along with cores of rock drilled when the Homestake Mine was in operation, that show the layering of rock underground at SURF.
SURF has been a meaningful partner for Mines, Whitehead said.
“Students understand its global significance and are inspired by the cutting-edge STEM research being done there,” he said. “The fact they are also embracing arts-based inquiry to broaden the scope of that research is very significant, reinforcing the importance of the arts as a meaningful medium for expressing complex ideas and bridging theoretical gaps in understanding.”
While Two Bulls has foundation pieces for his exhibit, new works that have yet to be displayed will be featured at APEX. “I am excited to show some of this work locally and share what I am doing with my community,” he said.
Two Bulls is also scheduled to be a speaker in Mines’ STEAM Café series on May 20, 2025, with a talk titled, “Art, Science, and History at 4,850 Feet Underground: Perspectives from a Lakota Artist.” He will spend this summer as an Artist in Residence in Maryland.
Marty Two Bulls Jr. was born and raised on the high plains of western South Dakota. He is an interdisciplinary artist and educator based in Rapid City, S.D. He is also a 2022 United States Artist Fellow, a board member of the Rapid City Arts Council and an Artist Laureate for the Oglala Sioux Tribe.
The annual AiR program at SURF is a collaboration between Black Hills State University and the facility—the process for selecting the 2025 AiR is now underway at SURF and the program has a record number of applicants from around the world.
