Littleton, Colorado, is on ancestral land used by the Ute, Arapahoe, Cheyenne, and Kiowa peoples. The city was named Richard Sullivan Little of New Hampshire and began as a farming town feeding the Denver area in the 1859 gold rush. But now a new exhibit in the city celebrates the early work of a Native artist.
The work of Denver artist Danielle SeeWalker is unmistakable. His paintings-many of them portraits with faceless subjects, many with long, winding braids-commented on modern life for Indigenous peoples subjected to stereotypes and colonialism. and patriarchy.
SeeWalker experiments with materials, and combines traditional and modern techniques, but he is centered on him. own tribal heritage. SeeWalker is Lakota and an enrolled citizen of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.
“I really don’t want to be culturally suited from a tribe I don’t belong to,” SeeWalker said. “When you think of cultural appropriation, it could be a non -Indigenous imitation or doing something Indigenous, but even tribe to tribe can be culturally appropriate. And so I really respect that, and know. And I just stick to my Lakota patterns, colors, traditions, things I know, and I’m comfortable doing.
SeeWalker’s new show titled “škhé: says” uses 1,800 square feet of the Changing Gallery at the Littleton Museum to great effect. For him, respect for the hundreds of different Indigenous tribes, and their differences, is key.
“I always say that people combine Native Americans into something, but it’s almost like saying,‘ All Europeans are the same, ’but no, there’s, there’s French, there’s German, you know, there’s all the different languages and traditions and customs and histories, and it is the same in the different Indigenous tribes. ”
Eden Lane/CPR NewsFor Littleton Museum Curator of Patron Engagement and Exhibits Moira Casey, the opportunity to bring SeeWalker’s work to the city she won’t miss.
“This is the first time we’re going to show a contemporary folk artist,” Casey said. “I’ve been following Danielle SeeWalker on Instagram for a long time, I read a really interesting blog post on the Denver art museum website about her work.”
Casey said the museum wants to offer visitors a variety of subjects, media types and backgrounds of artists.
SeeWalker itself has been creating for a long time in a variety of different media. He also makes beadwork and murals and is a great writer. And he’s been doing a project documenting the lives of Indigenous people in the 21st century since 2013. But until the pandemic hit in 2020 SeeWalker really started to showcase his painting.
“So, you know, 2020 is a fun year for everyone. And you know, [I] is ready and willing to step out of my bubble and just try some new things. “
SeeWalker said his approach to his work throughout his career has been focused on storytelling.
“And so each piece is very unique because it tells a story,” SeeWalker said. “You know, there is one, for instance, that’s called ‘Unci’, which means grandma in Lakota. And in my culture, your grandmother is really the custodian of knowledge and the person who raised you…. And grandmothers are very, very important to my culture. And so I want to honor that because I’m really close to my grandmother.
Eden Lane/CPR NewsBut, he says, activism and storytelling often go hand in hand. For example, she brings up issues of missing and murdered indigenous women as well as culturally insensitive mascots through her art.
“So I try to tap into so many different audiences to categorize teaching and storytelling and bring awareness through art. So it’s kind of what I refer to as artivism activism.
Curator Casey said the kind of work blend is exactly what he hopes to share with visitors to the Littleton Museum. Important work, he says, that provides space for indigenous artists or BIPOC artists to tell their own stories, especially when traditional American art is often narrated from a white perspective – and especially when Littleton is sitting in ancestral lands.
“And so it’s very important, I think, from a historical art perspective to have people, to have artists from those cultures who describe their own way of life and their own culture, and are good at an artistic field, ”Casey said. “Both for artivism, you know, for social change and just for art itself, just aesthetically.”
Danielle SeeWalker’s exhibit, “škhé: says” will be on display at the Littleton Museum until October 9th.
