Tatanka Wanbli Checkpa Wincincala, Buffalo Robe 1 of 5 Tatanka Wanbli Checkpa Wincincala, Twins Eyes Open 2 of 5 Tatanka Wanbli Checkpa Wincincala, Twins Eyes Closed 3 of 5 Tatanka Wanbli Checkpa Wincincala, Twins Transform 4 of 5 Tatanka Wanbli Checkpa Wincincala, Eagle Feather 5 of 5 Paint Up #1 Baby Boyz Gotta Indian Horse Daddy's Gotta New Ride Baby Girlz Gotta Mustang Momma Has a Pony Girl (Named History and Sets Her Free)
Dana Claxton is part of a generation of First Nations artists who employ strategies of contemporary art to address the impact of history on the present. Since the early 1990s, Claxton (born in Yorkton, Saskatchewan), of Lakota (Sioux) descent, has investigated the historical, and continuing, impact of colonialism on Aboriginal cultures in North America. In her work the artist seeks to deconstruct the ways in which images, philosophies and iconographies of First Nations are formed and commodified, both historically and in contemporary mainstream society.
Dana Claxton’s work has been shown at the National Gallery of Canada, Vancouver Art Gallery, Museum of Modern Art, Walker Art Centre, Eiteljorg Museum, Sundance Film Festival and the Microwave International New Media Festival in Hong Kong, and has presented papers at the Getty Institute, Mid-American Art College Association and the Art College Association (US). Her work has been collected by the National Gallery of Canada, Art Bank of Canada, Vancouver Art Gallery, and Winnipeg Gallery, and has been selected for the 17th Biennale of Sydney 2010. She has taught at the Indigenous Media Arts Group and Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design in Vancouver, and the 2003 Global Television Chair at the University of Regina in the School of Journalism, where she taught Television and Radio broadcasting. Dana was awarded the prestigious VIVA Award from the Doris and Jack Shadbolt Foundation, and in 2007 became an Eiteljorg Fellow sponsored by the Ford Foundation. Dana Claxton was the Ruth Wynn Woodward Endowed Chair in Women’s Studies at Simon Fraser University 2009/10 and is now an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory with the University of British Columbia.