BFA Exhibition
statement and explanation for each piece below
Embedded Files
Against Acknowledgment
Against Acknowledgment
Do you have to prove what you say you are? Native Americans are the only group of people in the US who prove their ethnicity to the US Government, but why? This need to prove that you are Indian is the continuation of the genocide and ethnic cleansing of my people and culture. Passing as white is easier in a lot of ways, mostly it provides ease if you can be placed in a box that is not “other.”
My work reclaims my Indigeneity through research of the tribal nations I am a part of and connecting my own life experience to the tribal knowledge and traditions. I respond to the generational trauma through my artwork, by addressing the cultural distance created from past government policies.
My great aunt Helen, participated in the Tribal community in the later years of her life, and recalled; “I had to find out my history on my own...I wanted to know, but no one would ever tell me.” Being Indian and talking about being Indian was taboo. It was better to identify with the Spanish or European in you.
I am a product of the “good Indians.” My father’s mother is from the Mescalero Apache tribe. My maternal great-grandmother, Mary, married my great-grandfather, Encarnacio, who moved her off the reservation in New Mexico when she was a teenager. She assimilated into American culture, and eventually, they settled in southern California. Encarnacio constantly reminded Mary and their children, including my grandmother, that he was “blue blood”, because he was of European descent, and therefore “better” than them. My grandmother said her mother, Mary was treated like a servant by Encarnacio’s family, and the reason for this treatment was clear, Mary was an Indian. My dad’s father was a member of the Juaneno Band of Mission Indians, Acjachemen Nation, which is here in Orange County California. My grandpa and his sister, my great aunt Helen were raised in San Juan Capistrano and went to the Mission Chapel there, but their parents never told them much about their Indian ancestry. Both my dad’s parents, while keeping some of their cultures, were not raised on a reservation or in a community of their own people, and they were mixed-race as well; but does this make us less Indian?
The tension, confusion, and duality of being a mixed-race person is expressed in my art with gestures of paint, the use of colors; red, white, and copper, and double images. My work is the result of my beginning to understand and digest the information of my culture. Also realizing the harm that its absence has caused me and my family.
I am an enrolled member of the Juaneno Band of Mission Indians, 84B, Acjachemen Nation. My tribe filed a petition for Federal Recognition and the federal government issued a Final Determination Against Acknowledgment. Blood certification, percentage, enrollment status, historical documentation by the colonizer, and acknowledgment are all tools of gatekeeping that are supposed to measure and prescribe what it is to be acknowledged as Indigenous. But these things are not needed for me to know who and what I am. I am Native American Indian and against acknowledgment, because the recognition we are told is required is a tool to exclude and reduce. Ultimately this form of acknowledgment is a tool for ethnic and cultural cleansing.
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Indian/Indigenous/Native American/First Peoples are all used interchangeably by Indigenous people. Indian is normally used by Indigenous people only.
Gatekeeping = activity of controlling, and usually limiting, general access to something.
Blood Certification = a document issued by the Bureau of Indian Affairs through an application that has a genealogy with supporting legal documents ( Birth certificates, enrollment records)
That Good Medicine, 2023. Photo on glossy paper with beads & photo on canvas with beads, 19 x 13 inches.
The idea that shaped this series is my health and connection to my tribe on my grandmother's side, the Mescalero Apache. The Crown Dances in the Apache tribe dance to chase away evil and sickness and bring health. Four dancers are covered in black paint or cloth and the 5th dancer who is the “crown” is covered in white cloth or white paint. Each dancer has a crown (antler-like in appearance) that they made out of wood, painted white, and decorated with symbols that each dancer received from the spirits. The dancers also have their eyes covered and usually carry a stick or sticks in their hands with bells or ornaments hanging from them.
One of the stories of how the Apache people received the dance is that long ago the tribe was under attack. They had to leave two boys behind in the mountains, one blind and one crippled. When the boys were weak and waiting for many days for their tribesmen to return, a spirit came to them and told them to light a fire and boil water in a pouch. When the pouch bursts, the blind boy was to jump over it with the crippled boy on his back, and when they landed on the other side, they would be able to see and walk. The spirit told them to bring the ritual to the Apache people to bring good health.
I wanted to create my own symbols that were an interpretation of my health issues and symbols that were more traditional like the ones other dances have created.
The series is a total of ten photos: five in a studio and five outdoors.
The five in the studio represent distance, the physical and generational distance from my culture when my great-grandparents left the reservation. In these photos, my hair is done, and I have makeup on, representing the modern part of me that has been disconnected from my Indigeneity. I am, however, wearing my shawl because even if I do not participate or acknowledge my Tribe, it is always a part of me. It's in my skin color, in my hair, and in my eyes; I am Native. Four of the photos have a traditional-based symbol above my head, and the 5th photo has all 4 symbols combined to create a crown above me. The traditional symbols are in these photos because tradition is what I have lacked and am trying to reclaim. The photos are printed on 19 x 13 glossy photo paper to highlight the polished look in contrast to the other five photos.
The other set of five photos are of me outdoors in the desert and the woods. I have naturally dried hair and no makeup on and again, I am wearing my shawl. I am outside in five photos to represent my connection to my tribe, culture, and the land that I am reclaiming. The photos are printed on 19x13 loose cuts of canvas and have a warmer tone to them. 4 of the photos have symbols I created myself which all represent an aspect of my health issues that I wish to be better or stronger; blood drops for diabetes which run in my family, a wall-like symbol for my bladder wall, an arch which represents my reproductive system, and a lightning bolt to represent conic pain. The 5th photo has all the symbols combined to create my crown.
Both sets of symbols are created using beads which is a Native tradition in almost all tribes. Also in the photos, I am photographed with my shawl. In some of the photos, my eyes are covered with a red bandana which is used by dancers and for me represents the blind boy. I'm sometimes holding a stick which again the dancers use, and for me represents the crippled boy. I am painted white to represent, the crown and the white-painted lady, the mother spirit of the Apache people and who is connected to the crown dancers through the sunrise ceremony.
The two sets of photos represent the indigenous me and the me that is trying to connect and reclaim the culture that I am embracing.
Poem in painting:
It has been filtered from by blood
It haunts me like a ghost forcing me to morn it
Morn not for its loss but for not knowing it as I should
It scares me, it intimidates me, it confuses me,
I cannot claim what I don’t know
I’m told not to know it, I’m told to remember it
It exists only in my mind for minutes at a time and never forms a clear honest picture
The only truth I know about it is
That I have never known it
-by Nicole Charles
Good Indian, 2022. Acrylic Paint & copper leaf, 30 x 40 inches.
The background of this piece is a poem I wrote that is painted over itself until it is finished, selected words are outlined in copper leaf; filtered, blood, morn, loss, claim, remember, honest, truth, and know. On top of the poem is an image of myself with red paint that has been scraped off my face as I smear on white paint, that drips down my hands and arms and down the painting itself, copper leaf is also dripping from the figure. The imagery for this work, which I produced in a performance piece (True Indians) was inspired by the poem that I wrote in 2019.
For me, this painting is the manifestation of the tension and struggle that I first felt when learning about my heritage. I felt like I was bathing myself in the knowledge and history of my people that I didn’t know. It also felt like this history was kept from me. Having to reconcile with the American culture that rejected my ancestral culture, and being mixed race, made me feel like I am not Indian enough. At times, I felt that I was not worthy of my history, that it was too late, and I was too far removed to be able to reach for it.
Concluding that these feelings were designed through cultural norms and influences of past government policies of the genocide against my culture and heritage caused more pain, which is represented in the drippings, the ooze, and splatter of this knowledge as I reclaim what is rightfully mine.
This could be us, but…, 2023. Acrylic Paint, Copper Leaf, 36 x 36 Inches.
Symbols in the image: Behind my head is the mescal plant and on my head are buffalo horns. I am holding a woven basket full of mesquite beans, gooseberries, elderberries, pine nuts, juniper berries, acorns, green chilies, and yuca root.
In this piece, I imagined what it would be like to have access to indigenous food and a way of life, in which, I and many others have been disconnected from. The backdrop is based on the desert of New Mexico and the mountains which surround the Apache territory. I painted a yellowish wash over the background to give a disconnection from my figure, like in a natural history museum. Behind my head is the mescal plant which the Mescalero Apache was named for, as it was a staple in our diet, with buffalo horns on my head another food source. I am in my shawl and wear plain clothing that is modern, but a reflection of the colors and earth tones worn by past indigenous people. I hold a woven basket, which is based on baskets that my great aunt would have woven (from the Acjachemen tribe) full of mesquite beans, gooseberries, elderberries, pine nuts, juniper berries, acorns, green chilies, and yuca root, all these part of my ancestral diet, specifical from the New Mexico Apache territory. Although, acorn was a staple in the Acjachemen diet as well. This could be us, but....is an alternative reality in which I can easily access the diet, my ancestors ate, and my connection to my culture was never severed, with no generational trauma. How would my health be different in this reality? This could be us, but…..we were colonized, a genocide was committed and the echoes of the policies that enacted that genocide still exist today. This should be us, and this piece is a hopeful manifestation of that reality for this one.
Against Acknowledgement: Great Grandpa, 2023. Silkscreen on rice paper, affixed onto watercolor paper, 18 x 24 inches.
Against Acknowledgment: Grandpa, 2023. Silkscreen on rice paper, affixed onto watercolor paper, 18 x 24 inches.
Against Acknowledgement: Dad, 2023. Silkscreen on rice paper, affixed onto watercolor paper, 18 x 24 inches..
Against Acknowledgement: Daughter, 2023. Silkscreen on rice paper, affixed onto watercolor paper, 18 x 24 inches.
Against Acknowledgement: the scroll Baptismal Name, 2023. Silkscreen on rice paper, 19 inches x 12 feet.
Against Acknowledgement: the scroll Direct Evidence, 2023. Silkscreen on rice paper, 19 inches x 12 feet.
Against Acknowledgement: the scroll 7 Records, 2023. Silkscreen on rice paper, 19 inches x 12 feet.
Against Acknowledgement: the scroll JBB, 2023. Silkscreen on rice paper, 19 inches x 12 feet.
This piece is inspired by the Federal petition and ruling against acknowledgment of my grandfather’s tribe, and the tribe I am a member of. https://www.bia.gov/as-ia/ofa/084b-juajbb-ca
The Acjachemen Nation (Juaneno Band of Mission Indians 84B) filed a federal petition for recognition, and in the petition, my family is mentioned and is one of the few members of the tribe who can trace their ancestry to a documented Indian. I took excerpts from the Final Determination Against Acknowledgement, which was about my lineage, or what I thought was important to highlight, and screen printed these in a variety of arrangements of 4 groups of texts onto rice paper. On a separate sheet, I printed silkscreen images of my great-grandfather, my grandfather, my dad, and myself, all descendants of the documented Indian, onto rice paper as well. Then I affixed the rice papers on top of each other on water paper. Accompanying these prints are four 12-foot-long scrolls, that have the selected text printed over and over again, each group of text getting its own scroll. In the center is The Final Determination on a pedestal with my notes and highlights in the document.
Seeing my family's name in this document gave me a sense of relief, but why? The feeling of needing to measure up to an idea or stereotype of what it means to be a "real" Indigenous person, is something that I have lived with my whole life. But Indigeneity is not exclusive to acknowledgment.
Half Breed 1-22 of 30, 2023. Drypoint red ink, silkscreen on mixed medial paper with verity, 18 x 24 inches.
This series is about the duality of being a mixed-race person who is from the colonizer and the colonized. The tension and confusion that is felt when being held back or kept away from your culture through socialization and societal expectations. Sometimes, I feel like I am constantly having to reclaim my identity, and this is one version of that feeling. Half Breed is a slang word that was given to mixed-race Native Americans, which further encouraged native people to ignore their indigenousness, pass as white, and assimilate into US culture. The words are carved in my handwriting and are upside-down on the top and right-side up on the bottom, the opposite of the figure which is connected in the middle. The figures are me with red paint on my face on one side, and white paint over the red paint on my face on the other side. These two elements together add to the tension and disorientation of the piece and the duality of the mixed-race person, two different sides of the same coin.
True Indian, 2022 Video with recorded audio over it.
Audio Recording: My great Aunt speaks a prayer in Acjachemen and then in English, I speak the prayer then we speak it together, then over each other until it fades out to just my aunt saying the prayer again.
This piece is a video of me covering my face with red paint then copper leaf, then scraping it off and re-covering my face with white paint. Then I scraped half of the white paint off and re-applied the red paint and copper leaf. This is the embodiment of how I sometimes feel being a biracial person, especially as a native person. The idea that being native is bad is something that I grew up with, from movies and TV shows to stereotypes and jokes people would say when I told them I was part Native American. The frustration and pain of feeling like I had to hide what I am, the acceptance that I am both, and the conclusion...being Indian is something I can take pride in.
Certified Blood, 2022. Photo, 8.5 x 11 inches. ( series)
Copper Over Gold series, 2022. Photo, 8.5 x 11 inches. (series)
This body of work is self-portraits that explore Native American history in the United States and how the documentation of them affects the present.
Why have a certification? Native Americans do not get money or help from the government simply because they have Indian blood. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) does not send out checks to people, and contrary to popular belief, the U.S. government does not mail out basic assistance checks to people simply because they are Native American. To receive money from the tribe you belong to (if they are lucky enough to make money at all) you must be enrolled in the tribe and be able to prove through documentation of your connection to the tribe, through the federal census. The first ever census taken of Native Americans was in 1850 and only counted 400,764 people from all the tribes across the US. Census taken, according to the US Census Department were spotty at best when it came to Native Americans. Depending on the person taking the census, some natives were not counted as one, names were changed to Spanish names, and Natives were referred to as “copper” for their race and not their tribe. These two issues inspired me to take self-portraits with the pennies on my face. Many people falsely believe that natives “just get money from the government” when in fact we would be lucky to get pennies. Pennies are made with copper and that is what my ancestors were categorized as. The idea of having to apply for Acknowledgment is painful and humiliating, that you have to prove who you are, and that you might not be enough helps to continue cultural genocide. The original caretakers of these lands were stripped of their culture and now their ancestors must prove that they survived the genocide to gain visibility and some form of amends (which isn’t whole as all land given back to Native Americans are held in trust by the Federal government) is as cruel as it is unusual. This series brings the past to the present and is my proclamation that I am here, I am Native, and I don’t need Acknowledgement from the US government.
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