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Four Seasons series: Winter

Image provided by Wendy Red Star

Four Seasons series: Winter

2006, printed 2016

Wendy Red Star

Native American, Apsáalooke/Crow, born 1981

In one of the artist’s most well-known works, Red Star cheekily parodies several stereotypes associated with Native peoples, including romanticized American Indians as “one with nature” and the exoticized Native woman presented in decades of photography by Edward S. Curtis and others. Humor is definitely present as Red Star depicts herself in traditional regalia against fake majestic nature backdrops, also recalling museum dioramas. She places artificial animals, plastic flowers, Astroturf, and other commercial items in the scenes, further complicating the idea of an “Indian Garden of Eden.” Within the series there also lurks a critique of how western landscape photography promoted the conquest of Native Americans whose lands were integral to their cultures.
Archival pigment print on Sunset Fiber rag
Sheet: 23 x 26 in. (58.4 x 66 cm)
Image: 21 x 24 in. (53.3 x 61 cm)
Gift of Loren G. Lipson, M.D.
2016.13.2
Provenance: The artist
Image provided by Wendy Red Star
location
Not currently on view

Resources

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, YOU ARE ON INDIGENOUS LAND: places/displaces, Apr. 6, 2019 - June 28, 2020 [on view Dec. 6, 2019 - June 28, 2020].

Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.

Learn more about Equity at SAM