The Buffalo Bill Center of the West’s Plains Indian Museum presents Artist-in-Residence Ben Pease, starting Monday, July 30 through Friday, August 3. This program invites visitors to watch the artist in action and interact with them directly.
Award-winning Apsáalooke and Tsitsistas artist Pease (“Takes The Gunds From Two Enemy Camps”) was born in Missoula, Montana, in 1989. He proudly follows a long line of successful educators in his artistic endeavors. Even so, non-conformity and unconventionalism play large roles in his artistic journey.
Pease graduated from Hardin (Montana) High School, then went on to study at Minot State University under a football and art scholarship. After four years, he left football behind and transferred with his wife to Montana State University to further his art studies. This artist is not simply in the game for the aesthetics, but to speak volumes, send social messages, and tell stories.
The week of July 30–August 3, visitors to the Buffalo Bill Center of the West can observe Pease working on his art and are encouraged to ask him questions. He is also a featured artist in the special exhibition Native Nations Now: An Exhibition of Contemporary Native Art, on view in the Plains Indian Museum through October 29, 2018.
Pease explains the purpose behind his art:
“All that is, is but a reflection of understanding. Color surrounds and envelopes not only the body but the psyche and spirit. Experience in memory or imagination can be defined by such encompassing hue. Those beings from before laid prayers plus tears for those to come. As do we. We feel. We see. We experience. Spiritual, yet measurable and undeniably empowering. This sense exists as an innate entity birthed from before here was here. Our connections in relation to the celestial bodies are evermore present and pertinent as our society evolves. Not merely an illusion.”
The Center of the West’s Artists-in-Residence program is supported in part by an award from the Wyoming Arts Council through funding from the National Endowment of the Arts.
Since 1917, the award-winning Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming, has devoted itself to sharing the story of the authentic American West. The Center is an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution. For more information, visit centerofthewest.org or the Center’s Facebook page. #100YearsMore
