NEAL AMBROSE SMITH (1966)
Neal Ambrose Smith is a descendant of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation. A multidisciplinary pop artist, Neal works as a painter, sculptor, and printmaker, and is a professor at the Institute of American Indian Art, Santa Fe. His work has received numerous awards and honors and has been featured in collections around the world including the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian and the Hongik University in Seoul, South Korea.
For a recent exhibition of his work at Chiaroscuro Gallery, he wrote: “I tend to be inspired by good things: James Ensor, de Kooning, Mitchell, Quick-to-See. Perhaps I’ll murmur from Pollock to Mehretu. Even steaking a riff or 2 from Squeak makes my day. What I cannot do is extricate myself from current events, the bad to worse scenarios that affect all peoples and their dogs. Perhaps our dogs are as tired of us as we are of our 4 walls. Fox, CNN, tabloids, and advertising blur the borders of the canvas, fencing in the paint, cripes! Indigenous painting with colonial borders. Fortunately, I can get my Guston on, paint the talking heads and put them on the walls. Alter-Native paintings in alternative facts.”
Do Fish Dream?
30 x 22 inches
Graphite, India ink and house paint
The Weight of Thought
30 x 22 inches
Xerox toner drawing
See Other Artists:
Norman Akers
Corwin Clairmont
Joe Feddersen
Sonya Kelliher-Combs
Anna Hoover
Linley Logan
Cara Romero
Diego Romero
Jaune Quick-to-See Smith
Steven Yazzie