Quick-to-See Smith's art exhibit

An art exhibit called Jaune Quick-to-See Smith: Made in America has been traveling around the country the last few years. Here's a bit on the artist and her work:Born in 1940 on the Flathead Reservation in Montana to Flathead Salish, French-Cree, and Shoshone parents, Quick-to-See Smith became an artist while in her 30s and was earning a living as a painter before she completed her master of fine arts degree at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. By the mid-1970s she had founded artists groups, curated exhibitions, and organized grassroots protests to express concern for the land and its native people. Over 35 years she has developed a distinctive modernist style in a variety of techniques and has received international critical acclaim through over 75 solo exhibitions and numerous international shows. Her politically loaded subject matter ranges from cowboys and Indians to reservation life and war, McDonalds, and consumerism.

"Everything in American is for sale including land, water, air, and elections," according to Quick-to-See Smith. That is why she includes money signs in her paintings as did Andy Warhol, but she adds other iconic forms such as ancient petroglyphs in her works to reflect both Western and Native cultures.

"Indian identify is at the center of her work, but her mode of expression is an appropriation of the boldness of Pop artists like Warhol and (Jasper) Johns," noted William Zimmer in a March 2001 article in The New York Times.
Below:  Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, I See Red: Snowman, 1992, oil and mixed media on canvas.