Artwork of the 80's
Side nav buttonsCAM HomeARTWORK OF THE 80'S: Timeline:ARTWORK OF THE 80'S: Styles & Movements:ARTWORK OF THE 80'S: Artists & Works:ARTWORK OF THE 80'S: Introduction:

Artists & Works
Jolene Rickard
(b. 1956) Iroquois/Tuscarora,
Turtle Clan
GRANDMA'S GONE (1987)
silver print
14 5/8" x 20"

STYLE: multiculturalism,
photography

 ©Jolene Rickard
Jolene Rickard is a lecturer, writer, artist, and curator who is widely sought after for her writing and thinking on Native American issues. Rickard uses her artwork as a way to create personal and political metaphors examining native culture and the way native peoples are seen in white society. Her works have specific meaning in Tuscarora culture—she frequently uses imagery referencing Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) culture, including Skywoman, and the great turtle which became the earth. Native beadwork traditions also play a significant part in her work. Rickard has exhibited her work at the Heard Museum, the Denver Art Museum, the Houston Center for Photography, the Johnson Museum at Cornell, and the Barbican Museum in London, among other venues. Rickard is currently an assistant professor within the Departments of Art and Art History at SUNY Buffalo.

CRITICAL EXCERPTS

Jolene Rickard, from Frozen in the White Light, essay for exhibition at the Heard Museum, Watchful Eyes: Native American Women Artists, 1994.
" ...do Indian artists acknowledge that unconditional inclusion in the art world obscures indigenous survival? The price tag for this unconditional marginal acceptance is to relinquish our claim of sovereignty and self-determination. By passively accepting our "equal" status with other Americans we abrogate our inherent claims to this land. The link between sovereignty and land claims is clear in Indian country. "Land," as metaphor for ecological, historical and political space/power, is what anchors our worldview. Sovereignty is a geo/political border that protects our version of reality. Oral history and visual thought or "art" carry knowledge from one generation to the next. If Indians no longer have a material and spiritual relationship with "land," then certain teachings and ceremonies cannot take place. Even when possible to transform these teachings into abstract space, without the geographic place of community experience has shown that the teachings increasingly dissipate. The debate rages that indigenous worldviews do not need to be linked to the living earth, but I have always wondered how Indians can transform the reason for planting, hunting and giving thanks ceremonies into abstract spaces at mealtime and death. . "