Plains Art Museum, Xcel Energy Gallery, ArtView Exhibition

Julie Buffalohead, an enrolled member of the Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma, is a Minnesota-based artist who has enjoyed both critical and popular success with her playful yet provocative drawings and paintings. This mid-career survey of her work is a traveling exhibition organized by the Minnesota Museum of American Art, St. Paul.

Buffalohead’s work challenges stereotypes of American Indians through narrative imagery drawn from myths and fairytales, Native culture, and personal experience. Having woodland creatures play the provocateurs rather than human figures makes the artist’s critiques of images of Natives and women less stringent without dulling their critical edge. When human figures do appear in her work, they are often dolls and toys or disguised as animals by wearing a mask.

Supported by the Margaret A. Cargill Foundation, providing funding for the Museum’s Creativity among Native American Artists initiative.