(Left to Right) "Companion Species Calling Companion Species," 2018. Reclaimed wool blanket, embroidery floss, 32 x 32 in. Photo: Kevin McConnell. "Companion Species (Cosmos)," 2017. Reclaimed wool blankets, 24 karat gold wrapped silk thread, embroidery floss, thread, 31 x 37 in. Photo: Aaron Johanson
Marie Watt is a citizen of the Seneca Nation with German-Scots ancestry.
Her work draws from history, biography, Iroquois protofeminism, and Indigenous teachings; in it, she explores the intersection of history, community, and storytelling. Through collaborative actions she instigates multigenerational and cross-disciplinary conversations that might create a lens for understanding connectedness to place, one another, and the universe. Watt holds a Master of Fine Arts in Painting and Printmaking from Yale University. She has received fellowships and awards from the Joan Mitchell Foundation, Anonymous Was a Woman, and the Seattle Art Museum’s Betty Bowen Award. Selected collections include the Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York; the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas; the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian and the Renwick Gallery, Washington, D.C..