Untitled (Indian with eagle feather)

Gina Gray’s subject is bordered by bright colors, but has a sober countenance. Gina Gray was both a celebrated activist and artist. When she was in high school, Gray hitchhiked to Wounded Knee to participate in the occupation of the town with a team of Oglala Lakota activists and members of the American Indian Movement. She also participated in projects exposing FBI surveillance of Native American activists. Gray’s work has been featured at galleries and museums throughout the country. She was the featured artist in 1990 at the Heard Indian Art Museum in Phoenix, Arizona, and her work was often featured at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. Gray’s work is in many public and private collections, including the private collection of the Sultan of Brunei. She described her work as follows: “I don’t consider myself a traditionalist. We were encouraged to move to a more urban settlement. My cultural upbringing was very diverse. This is probably the origin of my strong usage of colors, the brillance of our universe, the multi-heritage of an urban collaboration, the personalities and influences that this multi-cultural lifestyle has had upon my people, however corrupt or divine.”