Read the full article by Marie-Elena Schembri at Sacramento News & Review
You might not think a tipi, skateboarding, basketball and Casper the Friendly Ghost have much in common, but that’s because you haven’t seen Indigenous artist Spencer Keeton Cunningham’s new exhibit, “Decolonization,” at Verge Center for the Arts yet. Colorful, quirky and impactful, this exhibit confronts environmental issues, Indigenous rights and the damaging effects of colonization through the lens of the artist’s personal history.
A member of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation in northern Washington, Cunningham considers the reservation his home despite having lived in numerous places, including San Francisco (where he attended the San Francisco Art Institute), Washington, Oregon, Las Vegas, Texas and abroad. Cunningham’s paintings are in the permanent collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Berkeley Art Museum and Sacramento’s Crocker Art Museum. He was a featured artist at the Fog Design+Art Fair at Fort Mason last month.
For “Decolonization,” he has assembled a massive collection of works, impressive in both number and scale. Each gargantuan canvas — some as large as 15-by-20 feet — was stretched and installed (and some painted) on-site by the artist. Sculptures, photography and multimedia installations accompany the paintings, creating an immersive experience within the Verge’s walls.