©Nicholas Galanin, Things Are Looking Native, Native’s Looking Whiter, 2012, giclée, 42 x 30 3/4 inches (106.7 x 78.1 cm) edition of 5

“My process of creation is a constant pursuit of freedom and vision for the present and future. I use my work to explore adaptation, resilience, survival, dream, memory, cultural resurgence, and connection and disconnection to the land.”

Nicholas Galanin’s work engages contemporary culture from his perspective rooted in connection to land. He embeds incisive observation into his work, investigating intersections of culture and concept in form, image, and often sound. Galanin engages past, present, and future to expose intentionally obscured collective memory and barriers to the acquisition of knowledge.

Portrait of Nicholas Galanin, Photography by Carlos Cruz Sol

Examining the complexities of contemporary Indigenous identity, culture, and representation, Nicholas Galanin works from his experience as a Tlingit and Unangax̂ artist. Embedding incisive observation and reflection into his often times provocative work, he aims to redress the widespread misappropriation of Indigenous visual culture, the impact of colonialism, as well as collective amnesia. Galanin reclaims narrative and creative agency, while demonstrating contemporary Indigenous art as a continually evolving practice. Speaking through multiple visual, sonic, and tactile languages, his concepts determine his processes, which include sculpture, installation, photography, video, performance, and textile-based work. This contemporary practice builds upon an Indigenous artistic continuum while celebrating the culture and its people; Galanin contributes urgent criticality and vision through resonant and layered works. His monograph, Nicholas Galanin: Let Them Enter Dancing and Showing Their Faces, was published by Minor Matters in 2018 and reprinted in 2020 and is available on the Minors Matters site.

Follow Nicolas Galanin on Instagram: @nicholasgalanin

©Nicholas Galanin, Never Forget, 2021, C-print mounted on Dibond, walnut frame, 51 3/4 x 78 3/4 inches (131.4 x 200 cm) edition of 10

©Nicholas Galanin, Intellectual Property, 2020, 6 C-prints mounted on Dibond, 19 x 14 inches (48.3 x 35.6 cm) edition of 2

©Nicholas Galanin, The violence of blood quantum, half human (animal), half human (animal) after James Luna, 2019, diptych, portrait of the artist; both halves of torn archival digital print, 20 1/2 x 15 1/2 inches (52.1 x 39.4 cm), each

Nicholas Galanin, Kill the Indian, Save the Woman, 2015, diptych, photographs, Sheet: 21 1/2 x 16 inches (54.6 x 40.6 cm), each, Image: 19 x 14 inches (48.3 x 35.6 cm), each

©Nicholas Galanin, There Is No “I”, 2012, C-print mounted on Dibond, 23 x 15 1/2 inches (58.4 x 39.4 cm) edition of 10