Artist Talk: Norman Akers (Osage)
Photo by Cody Hammer. Image courtesy of the artist.
Please join us for a talk by Norman Akers (Citizen of the Osage Nation) to learn more about his art practice and the painting "Drowning Elk" (2020), which is currently on display in the Zimmerli's special exhibition Indigenous Identities: Here, Now & Always. There will be a light reception following the talk.
Norman Akers is an Osage artist from Grayhorse District who teaches painting and drawing at the University of Kansas. His artwork addresses concepts of place through multilayered visual images to form narratives bridging a personal understanding of Osage culture and experiences to contemporary issues. Norman's artworks act as maps of culture, memory, and place. The intersecting lines that serve as the background for his images are clearly cartographic; using visual symbols and iconography, Akers creates forceful visual statements about cultural identity, environmental issues, and the impact of colonialism on Native land. He states, "Through color, line, and visual form, I express deeply felt concerns regarding removal, disturbance, and the struggle to reclaim cultural context."
Akers' work has received national recognition, including a solo exhibition at the Albrecht Kemper Art Museum, Saint Joseph, Missouri, and recent group exhibitions New Terrains, Phillips Auction, New York City, NY, Rivers Flow/Artist Connect, Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY, and the traveling exhibition Exploding Native Inevitable, Bates College Museum of Art, Lewiston, ME.
He is a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Fellowship. His artworks are in several collections, including the Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis, Missouri; Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri; Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, Kansas, and Gilcrease Museum of Art, Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Additional information about parking registration coming soon.
The Zimmerli’s operations, exhibitions, and programs are funded in part by Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and income from the Avenir Endowment Fund and the Andrew W. Mellon Endowment Fund. Additional support comes from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, Bloomberg Philanthropies, and the donors, members, and friends of the museum.
Generous support for bilingual text was provided by Art Bridges Foundation’s Access for All program.
Grant funding has been provided by the Middlesex County Board of County Commissioners through a grant award from the Middlesex County Cultural and Arts Trust Fund. For information on events, go to MiddlesexCountyCulture.com
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