Photo courtesy of Jason Ordaz, IAIA, 2019.
Biography
Makaye Lewis (Tohono O’odham) is a multi-disciplinary artist, born in 1996. Lewis comes from the small, secluded village of Ventana on the Tohono O’odham Nation in Arizona. Her hometown has a current population of forty-nine and is located sixty miles from the Mexican border. Lewis is informed by her Tohono O’odham heritage and culture; her artwork is an extension of both environmental influences and cultural narratives. Her practice is a product of her exploration of creative processes and observational studies.
She received her Associate of Fine Arts at Tohono O’odham Community College in 2017 and went on to receive her Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 2020.
Lewis is a recipient of the Walt Disney Company Scholarship. Her work has been highlighted in several Institute of American Indian Arts exhibitions, including: Visitors and Intruders; and Thirteen; Art Rush; Small Mediums At Large; Día de Los Muertos: More than Sugar Skulls. She also exhibited at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe, New Mexico in Indigenous Women: Border Matters. More recently, she attended and was a participating artist in Countermapping Arizona: Rebuilding BIPOC Artistic Ecosystems Across Borders which held a 3-day residency at the Arizona State University campus in Tempe, Arizona in 2023.
Artist Statement
Informed by my background as Tohono O’odham, my work touches on memory and place. My art is a product of my exploration of creative processes and observational studies. I primarily focus on the environment of my reservation, closely studying the animals, plants and landscapes to show the beauty as well as the militarized reality behind it.
With the signing of the Gadsden Purchase in 1853, the present-day international border between the US and Mexico as we know it was set, cutting our people in half. Although the Tohono O’odham retained a portion of our traditional homelands, the ongoing invasion of Border Patrol onto our lands has caused traumatic disruptions to our ways of life. I utilize printmaking to recount my experiences of growing up on the borderlands and to delve into memories I previously never talked or thought much about.
My art addresses the post-9/11 American views of the US/Mexico border versus real-life personal encounters with Border Patrol and the ongoing flow of migrants through our lands. Furthermore, mothering in the borderlands has awakened a new sense of worry for how militarization and constant surveillance might affect our youth, who have never known freedom without checkpoints
Makaye Lewis (Tohono O’odham) is a multi-disciplinary artist, born in 1996. Lewis comes from the small, secluded village of Ventana on the Tohono O’odham Nation in Arizona. Her hometown has a current population of forty-nine and is located sixty miles from the Mexican border. Lewis is informed by her Tohono O’odham heritage and culture; her artwork is an extension of both environmental influences and cultural narratives. Her practice is a product of her exploration of creative processes and observational studies.
She received her Associate of Fine Arts at Tohono O’odham Community College in 2017 and went on to receive her Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 2020.
Lewis is a recipient of the Walt Disney Company Scholarship. Her work has been highlighted in several Institute of American Indian Arts exhibitions, including: Visitors and Intruders; and Thirteen; Art Rush; Small Mediums At Large; Día de Los Muertos: More than Sugar Skulls. She also exhibited at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe, New Mexico in Indigenous Women: Border Matters. More recently, she attended and was a participating artist in Countermapping Arizona: Rebuilding BIPOC Artistic Ecosystems Across Borders which held a 3-day residency at the Arizona State University campus in Tempe, Arizona in 2023.
Artist Statement
Informed by my background as Tohono O’odham, my work touches on memory and place. My art is a product of my exploration of creative processes and observational studies. I primarily focus on the environment of my reservation, closely studying the animals, plants and landscapes to show the beauty as well as the militarized reality behind it.
With the signing of the Gadsden Purchase in 1853, the present-day international border between the US and Mexico as we know it was set, cutting our people in half. Although the Tohono O’odham retained a portion of our traditional homelands, the ongoing invasion of Border Patrol onto our lands has caused traumatic disruptions to our ways of life. I utilize printmaking to recount my experiences of growing up on the borderlands and to delve into memories I previously never talked or thought much about.
My art addresses the post-9/11 American views of the US/Mexico border versus real-life personal encounters with Border Patrol and the ongoing flow of migrants through our lands. Furthermore, mothering in the borderlands has awakened a new sense of worry for how militarization and constant surveillance might affect our youth, who have never known freedom without checkpoints
