Label Type
Descriptive LabelLabel
"Melanie Yazzie was born in Ganado, Arizona in 1966. She is Navajo or Diné of the Salt and Bitter Water Clans.She grew up on the Navajo Reservation.
She first studied art at the Westtown Boarding School in Pennsylvania. Yazzie earned a BFA at Arizona State University in 1990 and an MFA from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1993.
Artwork
Melanie Yazzie works a wide range of media that include printmaking, painting, sculpting, and ceramics, as well as installation art. Her art is accessible to the public on many levels, while being witty and colorful.
Her subject matter is significant because the serious undertones reference native post-colonial dilemmas. Her work often brings images of women from many indigenous cultures to the fore. Thus her work references matrilineal systems and points to the possibility of female leadership.
A recurring motif in Yazzie's work has been Blue Bird flour sacks, which provided clothing material during her childhood.
Professional career
Yazzie had lead several collaborative international projects, including ones with artists in Siberia, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Mexico, and Germany. A recent portfolio, ""Hello Kitty and Pocahontas"" examined world artists analysis of the commercialization of ethnic identity.
In addition to teaching at the Institute of American Indian Arts, the College of Santa Fe, Boise State University, and the University of Arizona, Yazzie taught at the Pont Aven School of Contemporary Art in France.[1]
A selection of major exhibitions from the 1990s to present include “Between Two Worlds” (2008) at Arizona State University, ""Traveling"" at the Heard West Museum (2006), ""About Face: Self-Portraits by Native American, First Nations, and Inuit Artists"" at the Wheelwright Museum (2005), ""Making Connections"" (2002) in Bulova, Russia, ""Navajo in Gisborne"" (1999) in Gisborne, New Zealand and ""Watchful Eyes"" (1994) at the Heard Museum.
She is an associate professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She teaches two-dimensional art. The artist is a highly sought-after lecturer.
The artist is included in seminal books by Zena Pearlstone (About Face), Lucy Lippard (The Lure of the Local) and Jackson Rushing (Native American Art in the Twentieth Century), and collected nationally and internationally in private and public collections.
Sources - Wikkipedia; References: Bill, Amber. ""Artist Bios."" C.N. Gorman Museum, ; ""Holding the Truth: Reflections of a Navajo Artist"" WGBH Forum Network."Label Type
Cultural/Historical ContextLabel
"Re-interpreting the Middle East II: Artists Re-thinking
Today's Terminology
Organizer: May Hariri Aboutaam
Re-interpreting the Middle East is a print exchange and a thematic portfolio that is a foundation for a discussion on paper. It functions as an abstraction of behavior (artistic, cultural and social level) and increases the individual understanding of a particular issue by creating the environment for an interactive and thriving community.
This collection furthers the groupís interest to explore the infinite world of terms referring to misrepresentations about the Middle East. This stigmatized Middle East is under a large campaign of invented new terminology some of it action based and some of it descriptive such as: Islam-phobia, the new world, re-create, re-structure, re-map, re-organize all in the name of democratization. Each artist is asked to seek visual representations of these terms within his/her background and experiences.
List of participants:
May Hariri Aboutaam, Sadik Alfraji, Samia Allaw, Sama Alshaibi, Stephanie Bacon, Heather Bryant, Dina Charara, Chaouki Chamoun, Youmna Chlala, Matthew J. Egan, Gordon Fluke, Annie Gedicks, Samina Iqbal, Hiba Kalache, Ina Kaur, Zusan Khayrallah, Scott Ludwig, Heather Muise, Candace Nicol, Andrew Polk, Kathryn Reeves, Jeffrey Rollins, Annie Ross, Farouk Saad, Nada shalaby, Ozlem Silverstein, Sylvia Taylor, Melanie walker, Sue Wilson, Melanie Yazzie, Ala younis, Sang Mi Yoo. Stacy Elko, Elizabeth Klimek and Delita Martin."