"Tobacco Testimony"

62.5 x 96.5 x 2.5"

Oil on Canvas

2022



"Tobacco Testimony" is one installment of a larger series titled: "Faces of Our Land" which is a collaborative project that interviews contemporary Native American perspectives from across Indian Country. “Faces of Our Land” is a platform for my artistic journalism exploring the American Indian diaspora, providing audiences with an honest, real, in-depth exposure to American Indian experiences.

The artwork features KamiJo Whiteclay (Apsaalooke, Crow Tribe of Montana) and discusses the commodification of tobacco, which is a sacred medicine in our Apsaalooke culture. KamiJo’s interaction and physical stance discusses a contemporary relationship with not only tobacco but with the industry of “Big Tobacco.” She is holding and juxtaposed against American Spirits cigarettes which is Non-Native tobacco company that capitalizes on marketing that uses appropriated images of American Indian cultures and it’s visual lexicon (headdress and tobacco pipe) and indigenous ancestral knowledges: “Organic Tobacco.” She stands proud and defiant against the American Spirits logo. 

This specific artwork is dedicated to battling the misrepresentation and inequality of “Large Industries” such as Big Tobacco that have taken a sacred medicine, turned our medicine into a cancer, and has financially benefited from this exact misrepresentation. The artwork seeks justice by exposing Native American perspectives and truths



FACES OF OUR LAND: SHORT DOCUMENTARY