Trade Routes, 2013, acrylic on canvas, 48"x36"

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The Face of Ancient America, 2013, oil on canvas, 48"x36"

This image is taken from a head fragment dated 300 A.D. in Coastal Lowlands of Veracruz, Mexico. It likely was attached to a life-size human figure. So I’m only guessing what that figure might have looked like. I have the figure standing in a pile of building blocks with skulls peering out as though in a dig or a midden. I was so captivated by the sophistication of this sculpture that I wanted to commemorate it, commit it to memory for myself. As I delve into the history of the Americas for my own research, Native America never ceases to surprise me with artistry that is unknown or little discussed. Museum, University and art conferences often neglect the continent they stand upon and offer panels and discussions on Egyptian art, Medieval and European art rather than anything about the original peoples of the Americas including today’s descendants of the First Peoples who are sometimes called “Aliens.” - JQTSS

Underwater, 2011, oil and acrylic on canvas, 72" x 48"

In the past few years, there has been an unusual amount of storm related flooding around the U.S. damaging whole communities; the latest of course, is Hurricane Sandy. At the same time the so-called 47% of Americans has been under siege by loan predation and bank foreclosures causing another situation damaging to many American families. This situation has also been called Underwater. The New York Times recently reported that yet coming is Global Warming in which all coastal cities will be "Underwater." The Rabbit is a trickster for some tribes, as is Coyote. Both are stand-ins for Every Human, meaning that they represent good and evil, that means all of us. We are all in these situations together and must find solutions together and not think in a short term way. I placed Louise Bourgeoise's smiles and eyes floating at the top of the water, she is a trickster herself and the rabbit was too mute. Death, destruction and bad karma are trying to pull the human figure "Underwater", but there is hope in the Peruvian figure, Native science may come to the rescue - JQTSS

Grasp Tight the Old Ways, 2011, oil and acrylic on canvas, 72" x 48"

This is a Yupik saying about referencing past knowledge which protects and preserves the future for our coming generations. Without this kind of vision we will use up our resources and damage the planet irreversibly. The skeletal figure is a warning; it wears a NW Coast rain hat that resembles a European dunce cap. The figure also wears a masklike grimace and holds a traditional NW coast transformational mask that displays a two-faced image (Picasso used this image in his paintings.) There is a Georges Brach bird flying over the right shoulder of the figure and a more modern "Tonto" figure looking back at the Old Ways. Melting snow is everywhere. -JQTSS

Turtle Island, 2011, oil and acrylic on canvas, 72" x 48"

All our tribes (566 U.S. Federally Recognized tribes plus 245 Tribes Waiting for Recognition) have individual creation stories about how we entered the world like the Bible stories in Genesis. Only our stories are closer to Buddhism in the sense that we believe in a connection between all living things. The Iroquois Nations believe that during the great flood Turtle raised it's back and saved the people. In Pan Indian celebrations, many tribes have picked this up and refer to the United States as Turtle Island (or Indian Country.) - JQTSS

Shock and Awe, 2011, oil and acrylic on canvas, 72" x 48"

When the last administration called the attack on Iraq "Shock and Awe" and our televisions were filled nightly with bombing raids on Bagdad as though it was a football or video game to entertain people. I was sickened at the thought that there were women, babies and children being killed or maimed in those raids. I researched war paintings such as Goya, Picasso, Kollwitz, the Mexican muralists and others. Generally war is about the men. So here I feature a woman with child in a Blitzkrieg, lights flashing with bullets and shrapnel flying while death piles up. There is a devil in the upper left leaping for joy in the smoke and ashes and an open mouthed wailing Picasso-like head off to the right. - JQTSS

Imperialism, 2011, oil and acrylic on canvas, 72" x 48"

A war painting in which the aggressor believes that the sun, moon and the stars all favor him sometimes called Manifest Destiny (especially to we Indian people.) War is like the moth to the flame. -It's seductive; it's profitable. Eisenhower proclaimed in a famous speech that we must beware of our military industrial complex and its all too powerful grip on this country. This war machine ideology sits in the middle of our congress, which protects it. How are we to interfere or lessen the grip of this greed or appetite for war mongering, for building tools or implements of war, for profiteering off war? History repeats the sad lessons about governments who stay continually focused on war until they are spent economically and reach their demise. - JQTSS

The Nature of Things, 2011, oil and acrylic on canvas, 72" x 48"

Lucretius was a Roman philosopher and poet of the first century BC whose only known work is The Nature of Things (c.50 BC) His visionary work is about the human relationship to the earth. Frida Kahlo often painted about her relationship to the earth, which also portrayed a pantheistic view, certainly her view was heavily influenced by Indigenous America. The female figure, a giver of life, exhibits the movement of plant or food or water from the soil through her body. Frida Kahlo painted a self-portrait showing a plant growing through a hole in her torso. The Trickster rabbit is in the shadow behind my figure, drawn in the form of Bugs Bunny, a modern day trickster. Lucretius talks about molecules or atoms or dust particles that we can't see, here I made pictures of them. There are dust or water particles in the rainbow and a diploid cube to represent the beginning of life. -JQTSS

Sissy and the Plutocrats, 2012, oil and acrylic on canvas, 6' x 8'

Instead of a man, it portrays a woman with her belongings in a shopping cart going up the mountain, which is laden with elegant food. A comment on the ever increasing class system in America where executives receive bonuses of thirty million dollars for one year’s service while the employees are expected to work for minimum wage with no benefits or their jobs will be shipped overseas. We listen to corporations whine about paying more than zero in taxes while they use our roads, bridges, hospitals, schools, electrical grid, plumbing systems, food harvesting—all the parts of our infrastructure, that we, the plebeians, support by having to pay taxes. This is corporate welfare. Yet help for the disenfranchised, the voiceless, powerless, impoverished part of our society is frowned upon. - JQTSS

Sissy and the Plutocrats (detail), 2012, oil on canvas, 6' x 8' feet

Black Ice, 2011, oil on canvas, 72" x 48"

Water is a giver of life and water is also a destroyer of life such as flood, tsunami, hale, ice storm, blizzard or Black Ice. My reservation newspaper, the CharKoosta, last week had a warning to drivers about Black Ice and the dangers of driving on it at night. As Salish people, we use the number 4 or 6 in our prayers and ceremonies, thus I had to make the Black Ice snowperson with 4 layers instead of three. Note there's a small circle marking the four directions by the figure's foot. There's also a Trickster Rabbit making trouble for humans trying to maneuver on Black Ice. Black Ice might be a metaphor for treacherous ground we humans suddenly, abruptly, meet up with in our life journey that skids us off our path into the trees with no warning. This too is about life and it's imperfections. -JQTSS

La Vida, 2013, oil on canvas, 26" x 20"

One of my favorite artists, Frida Kahlo, is known for her self-portraits and though I admire the portraits, as well as, her extraordinary beauty, I am drawn to her interpretation of the Indigenous worldview. All of our illustrious American Indian speeches that were recorded during the treaty times speak so eloquently of the need to respect and care for nature and of the connections of everything on the planet. Frida Kahlo’s paintings interpret this worldview, using symbolic images to teach us. La Vida, in homage to Kahlo, portrays a leaf as a rib cage including the shadow of a leaf behind the torso reminding us that life never ends, it only goes forward in a new form or came from a different form. - JQTSS

Woman Looking in a Mirror (after Wilfredo Lam),
2013, oil on canvas, 26" x 20"

Many years ago, I went to the Snake Dances at Hopi with a Hopi friend who belongs to the Water Clan. The Snakes are thought to bring the summer rain. Aztecs speak the same language as the Hopi People and as one wing of my family that comes from Shoshone-Bannock in Idaho also. The Aztecs have a goddess of water, rivers, seas, streams, storms and more. This goddess of water is married to the rain god, Tlaloc (sounds like chalk). Like other water deities, she is often associated with snakes. So in this image, the Indigenous (Indian of the Americas) woman may be seeking the end to drought and sees a reflection of the serpent that can end that drought. -JQTSS

An American Breakthrough, 2007, color lithograph & archival inkjet, ed. 30, 25" x 17.5"

JAUNE QUICK-TO-SEE SMITH

Water and War

February 28 - April 6, 2013
In Water and War Smith’s paintings depict her passionate concerns about climate change, the survival of our environment and the economic fall out from government and corporate decisions made in recent decades. Many works also comment on American Indian life and its paradoxical relationship to American consumerism. In Sissy and the Plutocrats a female Sisyphus pushes her shopping cart up a mountain, which is laden with elegant foodstuffs. Here, Smith looks at the widening gap between rich and poor, using her signature mix of pointed humor and cleverly constructed symbolism.

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith is a critically acclaimed Native American artist, who over the past 40 years has had more than 100 solo exhibitions, during which she completed nationwide printmaking projects, curated over 30 Native American exhibitions, and gave more than 200 lectures at museums and conferences internationally, most recently at universities in China. Smith has also completed several collaborative public works including the floor design in the Great Hall of the new Denver Airport, an in-situ sculpture piece in Yerba Buena Park of San Francisco, and a mile-long sidewalk history trail in West Seattle.

Smith’s work is included in dozens of important museum collections: Museum of Modern Art, NY, NY; Whitney Museum of American Art, NY, NY; Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, NY; Brooklyn Museum, NY; Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Washington, DC; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Museum for World Cultures, Frankfurt, Germany and Museum for Ethnology, Berlin - to name only a few. Recent awards include a grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation to archive her work; the 2011 Art Table Artist Award; Moore College of Art & Design, PA, Visionary Woman Award for 2011; Induction into the National Academy of Art 2011; Living Artist of Distinction, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, NM, 2012; and the Switzer Distinguished Artist Award for 2012. Smith also holds 4 honorary doctorates from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Arts, the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Mass College of Art and the University of New Mexico.

Born at St. Ignatius Mission on her reservation Smith is an enrolled Salish member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation of Montana. She currently lives and works in New Mexico.