(En)gendered Agency 2023
Geralyn Montano
Bio:
Geralyn Montano was born in Colorado to a Dineh (Navajo) father and mother with French, Spanish, Comanche, and Pueblo ancestry. Her mother recently discovered she is related to Albert Looking Elk Martinez, the first renowned painter of Toa Pueblo.
Montano has had a passion for art making since she was young. She received her formal art education from the San Francisco Art Institute, graduating with a BFA in interdisciplinary arts including drawing, painting, and sculpture.
Montano has a strong interest in working with under-represented members of her community. She has volunteered with Spark, a program for mentoring middle school students in need of additional resources to support their exploration of careers, where she taught drawing and sculpture. She has also volunteered in domestic violence shelters and taught art workshops at a Bay Area trafficking survivor shelter for women. Montano is currently a visual art instructor for developmentally disabled adults.
Montano’s work is inspired by her heritage and personal experience. Her art practice is informed by exploration in Native American contemporary issues related to intergenerational adversity. Her Dineh grandfather’s New Mexico boarding school experience, and her parents’ loss of culture through oppressive assimilation, sparked her interest in researching Native American culture and traditions. She explores historical and contemporary issues using art as a tool to deconstruct colonial patriarchy and celebrate resilient matriarchy. Montano’s work juxtaposes aesthetic qualities with subversive imagery, never shying away from controversial or provocative subjects.
Her work has been exhibited at The Autry Museum of the American West, El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe, Crocker Art Museum, Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana of San Jose, The Mexican Museum of San Francisco, Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, Galeria de la Raza, Incline Gallery, San Francisco ARC Gallery, Humboldt State University Goudi’ni Gallery, San Francisco State University Gallery, Luggage Store Gallery, LH Horton Jr Gallery, and University of San Francisco Thacher Gallery, in addition to in numerous private collections and the museum collections of Stanford University and the Crocker Art Museum of Sacramento. She has also been interviewed on public radio, written about by Journalist Rose Arietta for “In These Times” and, most recently, featured in “First American Art Magazine.”
Artist Statement:
Creating and exhibiting art is my way of connecting with the community. I share my experience living as a contemporary Native American woman artist. I am of mixed heritage and predominantly Native American. I was raised in an urban family and we were estranged from our Native culture. I’ve been inspired to research historical and contemporary Native culture. I am specifically intrigued with the cultural connections to matriarchal societies and how women were held in high regard.
I use a variety of materials such as acrylic paint, wood, ceramics, sewing and fiber art. My paintings and sculptures feature the female figure prominently. I am also drawn to using circles in the expressive backgrounds of my paintings. These symbolize the moon, medicine wheel, femininity, and wholeness.
My aim is to use art as a contribution to advocating for women’s empowerment. In 2011, I was researching trafficking of women. This led me to news stories on sex-trafficking of women and girls occurring on Native American reservations at epidemic proportions.
I was inspired to bring this hidden crisis to light by creating a body of work for exhibition on the topic. The work in this exhibition is from this series. I titled the series, Traded Moons. With the support of a San Francisco Arts Commission grant, I was able to expand the body of work into a project which included a healing arts collage workshop I lead at a local Bay Area trafficking survivor shelter.
It is my hope that my artwork will draw people in to provoke conversation which is a first step in generating change.
Artwork and Images courtesy of the Artist and TB Contemporary
Sundance in Red
graphite, acrylic, collage on paper on stretched canvas
72” x 54”
The central image in Sundance in Red is a young Native American girl. She wears a dress appropriate for her age. Yet, incongruently she wears fishnet stockings and oversized heels to convey the precarious situation a sex trafficked girl would find herself in. The handcuffs speak of the power and control used by human traffickers. She is given empowerment with a fist in preparation for battle. More prominently, the bright red dress is also used to empower. Red is commonly associated with prostitution; although, it is used here associated with indigenous symbolism. Within many indigenous cultures red symbolizes protection, passion, power, life force, and preservation of existence in spite of settler colonialism's attempt at erasure. To counter such detrimental history, a humorous looking hogtied cowboy settler was drawn, then erased under her heel. Additional female empowerment was the use of paper doll’s encircling the girl in solidarity. The paper dolls were cut from xerox copied news articles highlighting the epidemic trafficking of Native women and girls.
Slayer of Fears
graphite, acrylic, collage on paper on stretched canvas
54” x 48”
Slayer of Fears has an image of a Native American girl dressed provocatively inappropriate for her young age. She stands holding a sword, prepared for physical and psychological battle. Being forced into sex-trafficking is a nightmare experience for women and girls. They must overcome painful psychological scars. Most have to live with PTSD after such a fear inducing experience. The background image in this work has a ghostly Basket Ogress, Dzunukwa (pronounced “zoo-noo-kwah”). It was created by drawing and then erasing the image. This legendary deity comes from the mythology of First Nations people of the Pacific Northwest. Dzunukwa most often appears in stories as a terrifying female giant wearing a large basket on her back in which she stashes rebellious children she has captured to feast on. Female solidarity is expressed in the collaged paper dolls that were cut from xerox copied news articles reporting the epidemic of trafficked Native women and girls.
Little Moon Warrior
graphite, acrylic, collage on paper on stretched canvas
48” x 36”
Little Moon Warrior reveals a young Native American girl in touch with her fierce personal power. She uses her anger to oppose traffickers who have objectified her. She swings a weighted Bola weapon She is dressed in black and white. The inspiration arose from the Hopi Pueblo Koshare clown. They wear striped black and white body paint and a double horned skullcap with corn husk tufts. The Koshare sacred clowns are associated with fertility, rain, sun, corn and corn pollen, associations that give them power. Koshare parody community and the humorous theatrics have a serious side that demonstrates unacceptable behavior. Koshares serve an important function as keepers of societal behavior norms. The collaged surrounding moons symbolize female power. They were cut from news articles on trafficking occurring in Native American communities.
Put Up Your Beau Guard
graphite, acrylic, collage on paper on
stretched canvas
60” x 44”
The drawing and collage work in Put Up Your Beau Guard is a young girl in mature provocative attire conveying the sexualized objectification of women and girls in sex-trafficking. In the background are moons created with acrylic ink splattering around a blocked circle. Moons and circles are powerful sacred feminine symbols in Native American culture. The title is a play on the word bow. She wears on her wrist a collaged leather, silver and turquoise Navajo Bow Guard which is worn to protect the wrist when using a bow. The spelling “Beau” is old fashioned for boyfriend or boy. With this information, the title has the added suggested meaning to protect or guard oneself from the most often male trafficker.
Exhibition Season:
(En)gendered Agency 2023