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.
- For directions to campus parking lots, search by the lot number on the Rutgers map.
- Lot 16 is the closest to the Zimmerli, located behind the museum. For directions, you also may use the address 536 George Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, which is the building located next to the lot entrance.