Indian country – el palacio

With or without federal relocation programs, however, Indian Country had been steadily spreading into urban areas since WWI. Duke Jr. was employed by the Bureau.

In fine art, postmodernism embraces diversity and contradiction, destabilization, and multiple perspectives, as does Coyote — a trickster archetype of indigenous narrative. Like trickster stories, my works are imbued with fantasies and incongruities. Maybe I am a trickster. People usually are struck by the fact that, although they may not see my funny side, my paintings are very funny.

Both the trickster and the artist reveal hidden truths, compelling us to acknowledge a world in which there are no absolute truths, just multiple perspectives. In paintings whose seriousness is tempered by trickster humor, Bradley portrays Native American history, human conditions, and personal relationships, and incorporates autobiographical sketches that might be too provocative or divisive in another form.

Born in , he lived with his family in an impoverished Minneapolis Indian community until, when he was four, the Catholic Welfare Services and the Minnesota Department of Family Welfare removed the children from the family home. Bradley and his younger sister were adopted out to a non-Indian family. It was not until he turned twenty-one that he was able to learn details about his birth family and reconnect with his mother and siblings.

But New Mexico had such an immediate impact on me, I knew that I would live the rest of my life here.

David Bradley's artworks are narratives from inside Indian Country.

Much of his artwork is highly personal, revealing many aspects of his life: family, community, connections to specific places and people, his sense of humor and outrage, as well as strongly held beliefs and politics. The painting Arlene Loretto , as well as a sculpture with the same title , are portraits of his wife, a member of Jemez Pueblo who comes from a family of artists.

He also delights in depicting the landscape and the town near his home. David; his wife, Arlene; and son, Diego Bradley, are seated at the front window. His meticulous attention to the surface gives each area of the composition equal significance and resists focal points, inviting viewers to wander the canvas from top to bottom, following lines, shapes, colors, and concepts.