Events
The Art of the People: A Conversation with Shirley Brauker, Jason Quigno, and Jonathan Thunder
Date and Time
Wednesday, February 3, 2021 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM
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Location
Virtual Event
Description
Join us for a virtual event co-sponsored by the GVSU Office of Multicultural Affairs and the Muskegon Museum of Art, Wednesday, February 3rd at 6:00pm. Artists Shirley Brauker, Jason Quigno, and Jonathan Thunder will join Dylan A.T. Miner, Director of American Indian and Indigenous Studies at Michigan State University, in conversation about their artwork in the exhibition The Art of the People: Contemporary Anishinaabe Artists, as well as their creative processes and contemporary issues in the indigenous community. The Art of the People exhibition is currently on view at both the Muskegon Museum of Art and the Grand Valley State University Art Gallery. The exhibition is curated by artist Jason Quigno and features nationally recognized and early career Native American artists working in a wide array of media that combine cultural traditions and imagery with contemporary sensibilities and themes.
Brauker works in the tradition of ledger art, creating paintings of patterns and narrative events that emphasize foreground objects over sparse, even empty backgrounds. The term “ledger art” comes from the use of ledger books by Native Americans of the Plains beginning the 19th century and Brauker utilizes this traditional material to address contemporary issues and narratives.
Quigno creates monumental stone sculptures by hand carving and polishing some areas while exposing the stone’s raw texture in other areas, achieving both abstract and harmonious naturalistic forms. With the goal of creating a sense of peace, Quigno uses simple lines to craft fluid movement referencing the stories and oral traditions of the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe.
Thunder infuses his Ojibwe perspectives with real-time experiences using a wide range of mediums. He is known for his large-scale paintings with surreal imagery, as well as animated films and installations in which he addresses subject matter from loss and recovery of Indigenous sovereignty, environmental welfare, and humorous social commentary. Masked and animalistic characters in surreal and abstract environments often set the stage in these allegories Thunder describes as “vignettes”.
The Art of the People: Contemporary Anishinaabe Art is on view at the MMA and GVSU Art Gallery through February 2021. For more information visit the Muskegon Museum of Art or the GVSU Art Gallery .
RSVP Required.
This program is INT100/201 approved.
This event also appears on the main events calendar tagged as arts, culture, indigenous, and native.
Information
For more information, please visit: http://www.gvsu.edu/artgallery/artofthepeople
Contact
Art Gallery exhibitions, programs, and virtual programs are free and open to anyone. For additional program offerings or for more information on these events please visit gvsu.edu/artgallery. If you have questions, need assistance or accommodations, or to schedule a group visit, please call us at 616.331.2563 or email UX/Learning Manager, Amanda Rainey; [email protected].