LED Firebox with transmounted chromogenic transparency (lightbox)expand_more
Gift of funds from Mary and Bob Merskyexpand_more 2021.29
Jeneen is a part of the 2018 Headress series. In this series, Claxton worked with several Indigenous women and asked for each to bring their own cultural belongings. Jeneen’s collection of beadwork spans three generations from Old Crow Yukon bead and hidework. Jeneen includes the work of her family, and adorns her body with moccasins, bags, necklaces, hair clips, earrings, and bracelets. She also wears several hats, including a baseball hat. The baseball hat and other more contemporary pieces denotes the liveliness of these artforms, both through its continued use by younger generations, and its adaptation. Claxton’s work celebrates and acknowledges that Indigenous art and expression evolves and changes just like any other: it is not consigned to pre-contact aesthetics. In this work, Jeneen chose work that was made to adorn, protect, and celebrate Indigenous beadwork from her community and to bring Indigenous beadwork into non-Indigenous artworld contexts that often exclude or categorize beadwork as “craft.” The stark minimalist background is meant to highlight the exuberance and quality of this beadwork and signal the necessity of including Indigenous women within contemporary photographic portraiture more broadly.
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