Wounds Many: Portraits of the Northern Ute
Keith Secola centers his practice on illuminating a deep dive into his family lineage, and also showcasing members of the Northern Ute community. Excavating and discovering, his work balances contemporary life, art strategies and techniques with historical documentation and traditional creative practices through the merging of printmaking, archival photography, illustrations, and murals sourced from Native American life. His work transmits Indigenous memories, identity, and narratives.
In this exhibition, Wounds Many: Portraits of the Northern Ute, Secola screen prints images from his family archive onto collaged and deconstructed American history books, which reinserts and layers Native identities on top of dominant narratives created by non-indigenous writers. By highlighting his ancestors, Secola uses his personal narrative to bring to the fore a discussion of complex and difficult subject matters like oppression, assimilation, and the loss of culture. He says that it is important to “not forget those sacred ceremonies before me, but grow as an artist with them, and not fully assimilate to western society, but truly exist in two worlds.”
About the Artist:
Keith Secola (Mino Mashkiki Wish Kang, Ute Indian Tribe / Bois Forte Chippewa) was born and raised in the Southwest. In 2018, he earned an MFA from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco. His work has been exhibited at Kala Art Institute (Berkeley), the Minneapolis American Indian Center, the Minnesota Museum of Art (St. Paul), Root Division (San Francisco), Self-Help Graphics (Los Angeles), and SOMArts Cultural Center, among others. The works in this exhibition were produced during a recent residency at Kala Art Institute in Berkeley.
Photo credit: Keith Secola, Cesspooch Family, 2019.