As an artist, I enjoy uplifting the nuance in both the mundane and the controversial aspects of society through projects like my recent “Rights of the Child” exhibit, which is a traveling exhibition consisting of a series of digitally illustrated posters and surreal paintings that explore aspects of childhood and our often conflicting definitions of human rights. In building the curriculum to accompany the show, I’ve designed the work to be showcased in conjunction with youth artwork showcases and panel/group discussions, as it’s important to me to bring more than just my own perspective to the arts experiences I create.

I’ve struggled with chronic pain throughout the majority of my artistic career, so the diversity within my portfolio when it comes to mediums and subjects is a result of me trying to explore the physical opportunities and challenges associated with this disorder. However, it was this condition that led me to branch out from strictly exhibiting in galleries to also working as a muralist, engaging community members as my “paintbrushes” – literal helping hands in the process of creation.

Today, I am a multidisciplinary visual artist, proficient in a variety of artistic genres, including illustration, graphic, traditional painting, animation, and murals – genres that are folded into my work as a community organizer. Using a wide range of engagement techniques, my work focuses on the process end of creation, and recently I came to the realization that my core medium is people and space – the cultivation of social experiences for community members to take part in during every step in the process, as their voices and skills become incorporated into greater collaborative works of art.

My artwork ebbs and pulls between portraiture, illustration and dreamlike surrealism, with a significant degree of overlap. This style draws upon a wide range of influences, including contemporary Indigenous artists like Jonathan Thunder, Karen Savage-Blue (whose work I grew up seeing in tribal buildings on the rez), Rabbett Strickland, Steve Premo and the like, many of whom have become not just influences, but collaborators and mentors in my journey as a visual artist. Beyond individual artists, I’m inspired by broad fields of study, ranging from Communication Theory (Media Ecology) to Macroeconomics. I’m fascinated by systems and specifically the life that functions within them, and I’ve found that surrealism allows me to visually break down and reassemble the parts of different natural and man-made systems (such the commodity chains that result in our everyday surroundings, our uses of architecture and urban planning, language, policy and law, etc.) into pieces of visual art that are more palatable and approachable than the concepts themselves.