Norman Akers (Osage)

Title: “Alien Conquest”

On View: November 15 2021-December 12 2021

Artist Statement: My creative work in printmaking has focused primarily on monoprints and lithographs. For this body of work, I started off by developing a series of small collages that are iteratively redesigned and eventually digitized to use as a narrative foundation for the prints. My process involves hand work that starts with drawing, cutting out images, and finally integrates use of the computer. The basic process of collage involves researching, locating, and placing images to make organized, meaning filled and symbolically rich compositions. The act of placing intrigues me as it becomes a metaphor for redefining place. The deconstruction of historic images allows me to engage in a reconstructive dialog that is meant to engage the viewer into a post-colonial conversation about place. As an artist I embrace the past, my own cultural history, and the representation of so called New World peoples in early European prints. My works are an attempt to reveal a more authentic sense of place in a world where notions of original inhabitants, and immigrants have become blurred by a short-sighted history.

Bio: Norman Akers was born and raised in Fairfax, Oklahoma. He is a citizen of the Osage Nation from Grayhorse District. He received a BFA in Painting from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1982, and a Certificate in Museum Studies from the Institute of American Indian Arts in 1983. In 1991, he received a MFA in Fine Arts from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Akers had solo exhibitions at the Lawrence Arts Center, Lawrence, Kansas, I Space, Chicago, Illinois, and the Gardner Art Gallery, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions including, Monarchs: Brown and Native Contemporary Artists in the Path of the Butterfly, Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Johnson County Community College, Overland Park, KS, Mapping: Motion and Memory in Contemporary Art, Katonah Museum, Katonah, New York, Unlimited Boundaries, and The Dichotomy of Place in Contemporary Native American Art, Albuquerque Museum, Albuquerque, New Mexico.

His paintings are in several collections including the Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Heard Museum, Phoenix, Arizona, Eiteljorg Museum, Indianapolis, Indiana, and the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri.

In 2007 he was selected to participate in the “We Are All Knots” print project, sponsored by the National Museum of the American Indian and ART in the Embassies Program Print Series. He was a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Grant in 1999. Norman Akers previously taught painting and drawing at the Institute of American Indian Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 2009 he accepted a teaching position at the University of Kansas where he is currently an Associate Professor of Painting and Drawing.

Artist’s Website: www.normanakers.com

Work Location: 1429 S Utica Ave.