In my native Hoopa language, kiwhliw means “he who paints.” I am a painter. I am also Native American, raised on the Hoopa Valley Reservation in Northern California.

As a young child I drew the stories I could see in my Hoopa Valley landscape and the stories of our ancestors as told to me by my elders. As I grew and attended school off the reservation, I began to hear stories others tell about Native People. As a young man, I was drawn to a new set of stories: stories I could see in the paintings of the European Impressionists and contemporary Pop artists. I began painting and found in the process a way to weave together the stories of my homeland, the history that others tell about my people, and the mystery I find in the work of artists who came before me.

To begin work on this collection of portraits, I looked to archival photographs of Native Americans, typically ones the white photographer intended as a “document of a vanishing race.” In naming their work, those photographers often misidentified or omitted the names and tribal identities of those they “documented.” The photos were often staged, with clothing, props and background settings selected by the photographer that further obscured the subject’s true identify. I was drawn to photographs in which something in the person’s eyes or posture spoke to me, invoking a sense of familiarity, and I painted with the goal of restoring meaning to their lives.

In the process of sketching the faces I selected, I began to know them. As I moved from pencil to paint and began adding layers of color to each portrait, I found life stories emerging. And when I completed each painting, I had furthered the sense that each of the men, women and children I had painted was someone I’ve known. I’ve included also in this exhibit a painting that tells something about how and why I paint. It is the painting by the entrance to this exhibit in which I have juxtaposed Vincent Van Gogh’s self-portrait, wheat fields, crows, and starry night sky with images of the Washington Monument, government airplanes, a Navajo Blanket, and the dates of the wars Native people fought in vain to preserve their way of life. My hope is that as you come away from this exhibit, you too will feel you’ve found someone you’ve known.

MAE AL-JIBOORI

Please make an appointment with our director, Kendra Roberts (director@blackfish.com), to view these artworks. Due to limited storage space, not all artwork shown here is onsite.