JIM DENOMIE (USA 1955) is a visual artist with a visual arts degree from the University of Minnesota (USA). A native of the Ojibwe ethnic group, his paintings and drawings address with humor and censure the violence perpetrated by settlers against the native peoples of the United States. He has participated in individual and collective exhibitions at various US institutions and his works feature in collections in museums such as the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (Santa Fe, USA) and the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art (Indianapolis, USA).
STANDING ROCK, 2016 (2018): In 2016, residents of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in the United States organized protests against the construction of a pipeline through the area, crossing the Missouri River. Focused on protecting the river’s water, the demonstration’s camp, which lasted six months and grew to 6,000 people, was heavily repressed with the use of tear gas, attack dogs and water cannons (including during low winter temperatures). In the painting, this scene is reconstructed with a Boschian setup of helicopters, hyenas, two-headed dogs, a Donald Trump figure harassing Justice and other elements that, between realism and fantasy, build up small allegories of a situation marked by the cruelty of repression and the persistence of the resisting demonstrators.
OFF THE RESERVATION (OR MINNESOTA NICE) (2012) A crude image of the so-called Dakota War of 1862, armed conflict between the United States and the Dakota people. The tension between the two sides reverberates the difficulties imposed on the indigenous worldview by a scenario marked by the extractive logic of neoliberal economics.
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