Shawnee Buffalo

With painting being my primary medium, my work focuses on incorporating figure and portraiture to establish indigenous representation within my practice. My work is an ongoing exploration on the personal relationship that I have with my own cultural identity. I try to focus on not only the good aspects of my culture but also to incorporate the bad, by interpreting the negative in ways that can evoke discomfort. A major concept surrounding my practice is the perception I have with vanity, and how that has affected my personal upbringing within my indigenous culture.

Through representation of figure, I intersect themes of femininity, indigeneity, lineage, cultural identity, and discomfort, not only through myself but also in each relationship that I have with family. I am imparting not only perceptions indigeneity within myself but projecting the same ideas onto other individuals who have made an impact in my life.

The incorporation of beading found in my work is not only a literal representation of family lineage, but also a representation of interconnection of family and culture. Portraiture has been a way to explore my own Cree culture by incorporating both the beading and nature to draw upon memory and their effects on my own growth as a young indigenous woman.