Formerly Known as Kaw Nation

2025 oil painting 30x36"

Posing to share my artist's statement I included with this piece that I've entered into a local art competition taking place in Manhattan, Kansas.

Please provide a brief statement about your submitted artwork and how it relates to the theme: “Unravel.”

This work is a critique on modern American culture when viewed through the lens of how the American Empire has shaped the landscape of its occupied lands centuries after the forced removal of Indigenous people who once cared for the ecosystem. What was once a stunning and vibrant prairie is now commercial farmland split in half by highways that leave native wildlife to fend for themselves. Past cultures have been erased, replaced by a manufactured and whitewashed version of Christianity designed to encourage conformity to the status quo. The work relates to the theme by suggesting viewers “unravel” their presumptions and biases on what they consider normal in today’s world, and ask themselves whether or not this scene truly shows a great America.

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I listed this piece for sale in the exhibition, should it be accepted, for $1,851. 1851 was the year that the American government began preparing to remove the Konza people from Kansas permanently.*