Before his “Piikani Visual Sovereignty” exhibition at the Hockaday Museum of Art in downtown Kalispell officially opened up in early April, the Piikani artist Terran Last Gun had one last piece to finish.

The bulk of the exhibition consists of vibrantly colored drawings and serigraph screen printings largely inspired by Blackfeet cosmology, culture and history, overlaid onto simple materials like brown paper bags, or old ledger paper. But to bring everything on display together into one focal point, Last Gun felt he needed to paint something on the walls of the gallery itself.

That finished mural, called “Layered in Land and Cosmos Experiences,” uses bright, solid colors and neatly formed shapes with clean lines to create an image that speaks simultaneously to the past and present, and even the future, in the distinct way that drives much of Last Gun’s creative work.