Collection: Past Exhibition - Native Portraiture: Power and Perception

Western art is laden with images of Native Americans that range from recordings of direct observations to highly romanticized, invented images. Yet many of these paintings are made by non-Native artists. What is communicated when an outsider portrays someone from another culture? How are these depictions different from when a person connected to a culture shares an individual or collective experience?

Contemporary Native artists are actively deconstructing myths and preconceptions about Native people through their art. Many portraits of Indigenous people by non-Native artists romanticize, stereotype, or appropriate Native people and cultures. By countering these non-Native narratives with contemporary art by Native artists, the exhibition aims to give voice to Native people and communities to show their resiliency and power over the ways in which they are portrayed and perceived.