Sponsored by Olivia & Pres Garrett, Ben Gravely, Shana & Japhet LeGrant, Lynwood Artists and Barbara & Guy Stanley. This exhibit was organized by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
Featuring works on paper by contemporary Native American artists, this exhibition underscores the richness and diversity of the contemporary Indigenous experience told through the medium of printmaking.
The works are linked by the belief that words have immeasurable power, particularly when reckoning with how written language has been weaponized against Indigenous people throughout the history of the Americas.
The exhibit introduces several contemporary Native American artists who have worked in the medium of printmaking, including Rick Bartow (Wiyot), Demian Diné Yazhi (Diné/Navajo), Marie Watt (Seneca), Larry McNeil (Tlingit), and others. All artists represented in the exhibition have chosen to incorporate text into their images, using the language of the colonizers of their land to tell their own stories. In this way, words play a powerful role in reclaiming a lost history and adding to the incomplete American narrative. In doing so, they also offer messages of hope, humor and resilience.
Accompanying the exhibit is a display of work by Indigenous comic book artists, writers and illustrators titled "Untold History." In this exhibit, Jason Garcia positions primary actors in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 as superheroes seeking truth and justice. Arigon Starr offers compelling stories of Navajo Code Talkers delivering classified information during World War II. Jeffrey Veregge weaves Salish formline designs into his revival of Marvel’s first Native American superhero, Red Wolf. Ceramic artist Les Namingha decorates a traditional Hopi jar with Pokemon.
This exhibit was organized by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and curated by Dr. Johanna Minich, former Assistant Curator of Native American Art.
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