Dana Claxton

This book consolidates our understanding of Dana Claxton’s dominant and recurring themes-indigenous history, culture, beauty and spirituality. While Claxton’s art often alludes to the destructive legacy of colonialism, it also celebrates the resurgence of First Nations’ presence and contemporary identity. What emerges is an artist delivering works of ever greater power and conviction. With her expansive and genre-defying practice-photography, videos, mixed-media installations, text works, performances and curatorial work-she continues to critically reimagine the space of the gallery to be accessible for wider Indigenous audiences and to uphold new understandings of beauty.

Dana Claxton has been unwavering in her dedication to her practice for over 25 years and continues to progress as an artist, creating sophisticated and poignant works that, as art historian Michelle La Flamme describes, “stimulate a much-needed dialogue on the power of the image, the role of the gaze, the importance of history, and the possibilities for articulating Aboriginal subjectivity.” – Leila Timmins

About the Artist

Born in 1959, Dana Claxton is Lakota Hunkpapa Sioux and her family reserve is Wood Mountain Lakota First Nations. Claxton is a critically acclaimed, award-winning artist and filmmaker, working across film, video, photography, single and multi-channel video installation and performance art. Her practice investigates the body, the socio-political and the spiritual within realms of indigenous beauty. Claxton's work has been exhibited and collected internationally, and her solo survey exhibition "Fringing the Cube" was held at the Vancouver Art Gallery in 2018. She is Head and Associate Professor in the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory at the University of British Columbia.