STUDIO ARTS

Norman Akers, IAIA Faculty

Biography:

Norman Akers (Osage Nation of Oklahoma) was born in Fairfax, Oklahoma. Akers served as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the School of Art and Design, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, Illinois and Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma.

Akers has had solo exhibitions at the Jan Cicero Gallery in Chicago, Elk, Butterflies, and Trees, Carl Gorman Museum, University of California, Davis, and the Gardner Art Gallery, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma.
He has participated in numerous group exhibitions including Who Stole the Tee Pee?, National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Museums, New York, Rewritings, Artfit Exhibition Space, Phoenix,  and Pathology of Symbols, I Space, Chicago.

His paintings are included in numerous collections including the Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Rockwell Museum, Corning, Heard Museum, Phoenix, Eiteljorg Museum, Indianapolis, Institute of American Indian Arts Museum, Santa Fe, and US Embassy,Yerevan, Armenia.
In 1999, he was a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Grant. The same year he received a merit award at the Oklahoma Painting and Drawing Biennial V.

"Sacred Stuctures" oil on wood, dimensions 48" x 42"

Education:

University of Illinois, School of Fine Arts, MFA Painting

Institute of American Indian Arts, Certificate in Museum Studies

Kansas City Art Institute, BFA, Painting

Professional Works/Shows:

Miner’s Canary, Center for Contemporary Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Art in 2 Worlds, The Native American Fine Arts Invitational 1903-1999, traveling exhibition.

Native Views: Influences of Modern Culture, A Contemporary Native American Art Exhibition, The Art Train Project, traveling exhibition.

Native American Artists/Scholars: Speaking for Ourselves in the 21st Century, American Indian Community House Gallery, New York, New York.

Teaching Statement:

"As an instructor it is important to create learning opportunities that help students develop a visual vocabulary that expresses their unique experience of being native today in the visual arts."