Visual Art Favorite 

Gallery Projects

Emerging Indigenous artists are mixing tradition with an urgent, organized message
Practitioner
Ash-Milby, Ka’ila Farrell-Smith, Portland Art Museum
Date
Dec 4 2021

The new exhibit “MESH” at Portland Art Museum features Indigenous contemporary artists advocating for change

Visual artist, writer and activist Ka’ila Farrell-Smith says she considers herself a wartime artist.

She is a member of the Klamath tribes and lives in Modoc Point, Oregon. When asked about how history influences her work, the answer weaves through over 150 years of white colonization and Indigenous struggles in the West:

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Emory Douglas, “Afro-American Solidarity With the Oppressed People of the World,” 1969
Practitioner
Emory Douglas, The Black Panthers
Date
Jan 1 1969

Emory Douglas joined the Black Panthers in January 1967 at the age of 23, just three months after Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale founded the party. Douglas, who had studied graphic design at San Francisco City College, swiftly became the organization’s minister of culture and the art director in charge of its eponymous newspaper.

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Nikkolas Smith: Art Can Help Show That Black Lives Matter. It Can Also Lead to Activism
Practitioner
Nikkolas Smith, BLM
Date
Jun 1 2020

When I watched them kill Elijah McClain, I couldn’t make any art for days. It had been week after week after week of gut-wrenching stories of Black lives taken from this earth too early. I wasn’t sure if I could handle another one. After seeing the way Elijah pleaded for his life while walking home from the convenience store, it was so hard for me to watch and process.

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