Wendy Red Star at Missoula Art Museum

Wendy Red Star: My Home is Where My Tipi Sits
Missoula Art Museum
August 5 – November 27, 2011

MAM is pleased to present Wendy Red Star’s first solo museum exhibition My Home Is Where My Tipi Sits (Crow Country). Born in Billings, MT and raised on the nearby Crow Indian Reservation, Red Star’s visual language speaks sincerely about her experiences as a Crow Indian in contemporary society.

Portland, OR resident Red Star attended Montana State University in Bozeman then moved to the urban sprawl of southern California where she earned her MFA at UCLA. Returning to Crow country from these large metropolises, Red Star finds comfort and identity in the broken down cars and vibrantly painted houses that litter and decorate the landscape of her reservation. Over the years the artist has documented with photographs the everyday aspects of the reservation; the government houses, the dogs, basketball hoops, sweat lodges, cars and churches. This exhibition of photographs, grouped by subject and presented as large individual prints, demystifies the romantic stereotype of American Indians while examining the mundane objects of rural life.