Jim Denomie told the stories of his life, cultural history, and the current events of his day through his vividly colored and expressively painted canvases, skewing expectations and challenging mainstream assumptions and beliefs about Native American culture and history. From chaotic scenes reminiscent of Hieronymus Bosch, to singular portraits and totemic figures, Denomie sought to reveal uncomfortable truths, to highlight the injustices, prejudices, and conflicting perceptions that have resulted from the collision of European settlers and indigenous American peoples. The artist dealt with his contentious subject matter with a deft sense of humor and irreverence, avoiding accusation and concrete conclusions in favor of personal introspection and an invitation, if only for a moment, to consider a differing point of view—the other side of the dominant narrative.
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Tonto and the Lone Ranger appear in a number of Denomie’s paintings, as seen here in Untruthful. The classical pop culture duo serves as a stand-in for the artist to address the clash between mainstream and Native American cultures. Here, Tonto, the Lone Ranger’s friend and companion, accuses his partner of lying, a fact the Lone Ranger both acknowledges and promises to continue into the future, much in the way the U.S. Government has treated Native Peoples through their history.
Denomie won numerous awards over his career including a 2008 Bush Foundation Fellowship, a 2012 and 2018 McKnight Fellowship, and the 2019 McKnight Foundation Distinguished Artist Award. He was awarded a Painters and Sculptors grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation in 2015 and completed the Foundation’s Artist-In-Residence program at the Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans, Louisiana in 2017. Denomie’s work is found in the collections of the Denver Art Museum; the Walker Art Center; the Minneapolis Institute of Art; the Weisman Art Museum; the Minnesota Historical Society; the Minnesota Museum of American Art; and the Eiteljorg Museum; among others. Denomie’s work has been shown extensively in the U.S., including exhibitions in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, and Seattle, as well as internationally in Germany, Brazil, New Zealand, Mexico, and Austria. His work was featured at the Muskegon Museum of Art in the 2020-2021 exhibition Jim Denomie: Challenging the Narrative.