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February 7, 2006
CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN NATIVE AMERICAN ART EXHIBITION AT IAIA PRIMITIVE EDGE GALLERY
Revered for its beauty and technical integrity, art created by Native American hands is also embued with intention. Sometimes that intent reflects the values and traditions underlying Native family structures and communities. Other times the intent carries a substantially harder edge.
As today’s generation of Native American artists comes to terms with the pressures of contemporary society and gains an understanding of the unique balance required of Native people who conduct their lives in ways that navigate the past, present and future, those artists gain a clear perspective on the world around them.
Those perspectives are expressed in the upcoming Primitive Edge Gallery exhibition “Contemporary Issues in Native American Art”. The show, which is part of a class of the same name taught by IAIA professor Steven Wall, is an unedited and unbounded look at the harder edge of Native American creative consciousness.
Typical of the artists whose work is included in this exhibition is IAIA junior Valentina Sireech (Northern Ute). Her painting, “The 490: Termination of the Utes” depicts the 1954 separation of many Ute families from their Tribal rights. It’s an issue whose injustice still burns in Sireech’s psyche.
“My family was among the 490 Ute people who were terminated from Tribal status because we were not 100-percent Ute blood. It was an action that stripped people of their Ute membership and tribal rights for something they had no control over,” she says.
There are equally passionate background stories behind the other works of art included in this exhibition. All of the student artists are available for interviews, through the IAIA Communications Office.
Click here to download full press release in PDF format.
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