Julie Buffalohead

Julie Buffalohead (Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma) is an artist who creates visual narratives told by animal characters that have personhood, agency, individuality, and power. She connects the mythical with the ordinary and the imaginary with the real, offering space to which viewers can bring their own experiences. She connects the mundane with the cosmic coaxing us to discover additional layers of meaning — using metaphor, wisdom, and wit.

Her work is informed by the native storytelling traditions with which she was raised. In particular, many creation stories assert that animals existed before human beings and possessed the ability to talk. Buffalohead sees animals as complex beings we can learn from, provided we watch with careful attention. Speaking on the characters in her work, she has said “I guess I’m always waiting for them to talk again”.

About the Artist

Julie Buffalohead’s recent solo exhibitions include Storytelling: Julie Buffalohead at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (2019–2020), and Eyes On: Julie Buffalohead at the Denver Art Museum (2018–2019). She is the recipient of the Guggenheim Fine Arts Fellowship (2019), the Lillian Orlowsky and William Freed Grant (2019), and an Artist Initiative Grant through the Minnesota State Arts Board (2018). Her work is in the collections of the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Field Museum, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, and the Walker Art Center, among others. She holds an MFA from Cornell University, Ithaca New York and a BFA from Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Opening Reception: Thursday, September 29

All are invited to an opening reception for the fall term Perlman Teaching Museum exhibits, Julie Buffalohead and Curious Objects: Learning and Teaching with the Carleton Art Collection. In the Weitz Center for Creativity, 320 3rd St East.

• 5:30 p.m. – Opening Celebration begins at the Museum. Light refreshments available.
• 6:00 – 7:00 p.m. – Join us for a talk between artist Julie Buffalohead and Gwen Westerman, outgoing Poet Laureate of Minnesota, educator, artist and writer.

Dr. Gwen Westerman (Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota Oyate) is a poet, artist and scholar. In 2022, she received an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship and is the first indigenous poet laureate of Minnesota. Westerman is the author of Follow the Blackbirds (Michigan State University Press, 2013), a poetry collection written in Dakota and English, and co-author of Mni Sota Makoce: The Land of the Dakota (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2012), which won a 2013 Minnesota Book Award and a 2014 Hognander Minnesota History Award. She is the recipient of the Douglass R. Moore Faculty Research Award and three Artist Initiative Grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board. Westerman holds a BA and MA in English from Oklahoma State University, and a PhD in English from the University of Kansas.