Artist 15 Wendy Red Star Four Seasons Series
Wendy Red Star is a Native American contemporary multimedia artist born in Billings, Montana, in the United States. Her humorous approach and use of Native American images from traditional media draw the viewer into her work, while also confronting romanticized representations.
She juxtaposes popular depictions of Native Americans with authentic cultural and gender identities. Her work has been described as "funny, brash, and surreal".
Her research-based practice uses photography, installation, and sculpture to humanize misconceptions of indigenous peoples, often with wit and satire.
Gorman Museum described her work as layering "influences from her tribal background (Crow), daily surroundings, aesthetic experiences, collected ephemera and conjured histories that are both real and imagined."
Though Red Star deals with some serious issues in Native American culture, she often includes humor, through inflatable animals, fake scenery, and other elements.
What Red Star cultivates in research emerges in her creative process, which she articulates with visual means.
Today’s focus will be of the Four Seasons Series. The portrayal of these photographic pieces is 2D. The background is fake and the animals are cut outs.
This reflects how one dimensionally Native Americans are treated in media, be it movies or stories. This idyllic setting and portrayal has for generations reflected a failure to stop discriminating against Native American culture. Red Star taking back this portrayal and owning it and turns it on its head.
Instead of fighting it and refusing it. She (literally) climbs into the stereotype and deals with it. This allows her to create on top of the stereotypes, building a foundation for better representation. I would recommend looking at her ‘Walks in the Dark’ series as well
Sources Consulted: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendy_Red_Star http://www.wendyredstar.com/
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