Giving VOICE: Native American Printmaking celebrates recent prints from Crow's Shadow Institute of Art, located on the Umatilla Reservation in northeastern Oregon. With its roots in collaborative practice and community, Crow’s Shadow was established in 1992 by James Lavadour (Walla Walla) and Phillip Cash (Cayuse and Nez Perce) to foster economic and cultural development for Native American artists. Since its founding the Institute has grown into an internationally acclaimed printmaking atelier that is widely recognized for its role in sustaining contemporary Indigenous visual art.

Featuring 38 works, the exhibition presents a diversity of voices and aesthetic approaches taken by nineteen artists in age and background to highlight printmaking’s expanding role within contemporary Native American art. Works range from Marie Watt’s recent woodcut designs that symbolically allude to the war protests and anti-hate content of the late 1960’s, to Raven Chacon’s lithographic series of musical notations dedicated to Indigenous women composers. Other artists such as Emily Arthur, James Lavadour, and Kay WalkingStick make the natural environment and the connection to the land their focus. Alternatively, Wendy Red Star’s and Jim Denomie’s incisive depictions address Native American history and identity to reclaim their Indigenous heritage and counter misunderstandings about Native peoples. Addressing issues related to political and social history, cultural heritage, community and belonging, these works illustrate an Indigenous worldview grounded in Native peoples’ deep sense of place and the historical role the land has played in shaping their personal and collective identity.