visual arts program

2010 Hallie Ford Fellow

Wendy Red Star (Apsáalooke / Crow)

Wendy Red Star artwork

Left to Right: "Alaxchiiaahush/Many War Achievements / Plenty Coups," 2014. Artist-manipulated digitally reproduced photograph by C.M. (Charles Milton) Bell, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution, 24 x 16.45 inches with additional 1" border; "Spring," 2006. Archival pigment print on Sunset Fiber rag, 21 x 24 inches

Wendy Red Star was raised on the Apsaalooke (Crow) reservation in south central Montana.

Her multi-media works explore the intersections of Native ideologies and colonialist structures. She is an intense researcher of archives and historical narratives. She seeks to incorporate and recast her research in work that is by turns inquisitive, witty and unsettling. Her work is informed by her cultural heritage and her engagement with many forms of creative exploration, including photography, sculpture, video, fiber arts and performance to offer unexpected and new perspectives on Native life, both historical and as it is lived today. She places a high value on intergenerational collaborative work, and providing a forum for Native women’s voices to be expressed in contemporary art forms. Wendy has exhibited throughout the U.S. and abroad including Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, Domaine de Kerguehennec, Portland Art Museum, Hood Art Museum, St. Louis Art Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Minneapolis Institute of Art, among others. She has been a visiting lecturer at a range of respected institutions, including Yale, the Figge Art Museum, The Banff Centre, National Gallery of Victoria (Melbourne), Dartmouth College, CalArts, Flagler College, Fairhaven College, and I.D.E.A. Space-Colorado Springs. In 2016 she showed in “Contemporary Native Photographers and the Edward Curtis Legacy” at the Portland Art Museum. She recently had a solo exhibition at APEX (PAM), a socially critical installation using historic photographs of Chief Medicine Crow (c. 1848-1920) alongside tapestries, writing and other historical objects from the museum to restore humanity to a leader whose image has been appropriated for commercial use. Wendy Red Star studied sculpture at Montana State University-Bozeman and earned her MFA in sculpture from UCLA.

ARTIST WEBSITE

wendyredstar.com