This is a painting by Jim Denomie, who has become quite successful as an artist after not pursuing art for the first 20 years of his adulthood. He was one of four Native American artists who exhibited at Johnson Heritage Post August 13-29.
An Internet search reveals that the four Native American artists whose works were featured at Johnson Heritage Post August 13-29 had exhibited together before. Each artist’s contemporary paintings and drawings were distinct from the others, and at least one of the artists has roots in Cook County.
Julie Buffalohead’s paintings on textured paper were both amusing and pointed. They showed animals interfacing with human objects and doing human-type things with them, such as a fox squirting ketchup on a plate with a hamburger and fries, a beaver and a rabbit whooping it up with toilet paper, a deer sipping a fancy drink from stemmed crystal, and a raccoon pretending to shoot with a battery-operated drill.
Star Wallowing Bull’s work varied from a montage with a target-like background and photos of each of the four artists entitled Please Stand By
to abstract, somewhat geometric images of Native Americans. His work seemed to reference both the traditional and the contemporary.
Julie Buffaloh ead’s ex hibit fea tured whim sical pain ti ngs of forest cre atures inter faci ng with m anmade ob ject s. Mor e of t he work of the f our arti sts who exhibi te d at John son Herit age P os t in August c an be fou nd on oth er galle ry websit es by Googli ng the ir names.
Andrea Carlson, daughter of Cook County natives Rudy and Mary Kay (Knowlton) Carlson, exhibited numerous untitled landscapes and images of vultures. Her entire portfolio is varied, however. A brochure about a show she and Jim Denomie had in 2007 at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts featured a review by fiction writer Susan Power, who described Carlson’s paintings as “works of ferocious bright energy, with teeth and claws. Theybite. Theydemand us to tear our way in and slash our way out; we cannot observe passively but are implicated in the story. …The canvas bleeds.” Carlson’s paintings “emerge from the past but point us towards the future,” Power wrote. “…Carlson shows us the fluidity of culture, how it travels through time like a living snake, shedding old skins along the way.
“…Ultimately Carlson’s works are not static creations on the wall but pieces in motion, interactive, conversational. They contain stories within stories, suggest a world where as much as we feel separate from other people in other times, from other cultures, this division is illusion and Carlson will chart where we all intersect.”
Andrea Carlson was one of four artists exhibiting at Johnson Heritage Post August 13-29, 2010. The daughter of Cook County natives Rudy and Mary Kay (Knowlton) Carlson, she is achieving success in the art world.
Power describes the fourth artist, Jim Denomie, as able to pierce a membrane between “our real world” and “the artist’s dream landscape,” his creative mind exploding onto another plane. She said, “The artist makes it to the other side where anything and everything is possible.” Denomie is able to reveal “through a tantalizing spin of perspectives all that is hidden – what we fear, what we secretly desire, what we ultimately recognize and remember,” she said.
One year, Denomie painted at least one painting a day, “small portraits almost mug shot-like in their naked, vulnerable openness; men and women, rabbits and chickens, each of them with a back story, caught in a particular mood, each a window into Denomie’s year that birthed them. …They serve also as his private journal, for as Denomie says, ‘If you’re painting honestly, they’re all self-portraits.’” Power quotes Denomie: “Even when we have a culture, we imagine
beyond it.”
Denomie has a dual career – “I’m a drywall finisher during the day and a professional artist evenings and weekends,” he said at the Johnson Heritage Post on opening night. He had enjoyed art from the time he was a child. When he asked his high school counselor to help him transfer to art school, however, she discouraged him from trying to pursue art professionally, and he dropped both out of high school and out of art for 20 years. After years of hardship, he went back to school and earned a bachelor’s degree in art and American Indian studies from the University of Minnesota.
When asked about the best compliment he has received regarding his artwork, Denomie said it was when someone said, “If I could afford it, I’d buy it.” He can hardly afford it, either, he joked. He has thought about painting a self-portrait depicting himself with a sign saying, “Will work for compliments.”
The work of all four artists can be found on numerous gallery sites by Googling their names. Carlson’s website is mikinaak.com, and Denomie’s is waboozstudio.com.
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