UA Libraries Celebrate Native American History Month with Art Exhibit by Bobby Martin

Thus, in the image "Uncle David Killed in Action 1944," lines of text from the Dawes rolls and the Muscogee Christian hymnal appear on the screen door, the clapboards, the steps underneath Uncle David’s feet. The old home place in front of which Uncle David poses, smiling with arms akimbo, thus becomes permeated with and forever marked by the majority’s rewriting of the culture of the Muscogee nation. The sad fact of Uncle David’s early demise in the defense of the United States is made more poignant and even ironic as the ghost texts transform Martin’s family history into a larger story that encompasses the histories of all those individuals who, reluctantly or willingly, crossed the cultural line. Martin says, "There’s the history of Native American people and their relationship to the government, and the situation of Indians in boarding schools, Indians in the Christian church, all these layers."

Another baffling yet delightful incongruity appears in "Dwight Mission Lawn Tennis Team." The image depicts a grouping of American Indian students dressed in white tennis outfits from Dwight Mission, the oldest school in Oklahoma, which was established on Sallisaw Creek in 1830 after the forced removal of the Cherokee peoples from Arkansas. Martin says, "The ironic imagery suggests that because you dress up somebody, in this case Native Americans, in spiffy tennis outfits, they become civilized. The fact is that they were already civilized."

Martin was born in Tahlequah, Oklahoma in 1957. After an early career as a musician and recording studio owner, Martin turned to visual art and returned to school. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Northeastern State University in 1992, and a Master of Fine Arts in printmaking from the University of Arkansas in 1995. While at Arkansas, Martin was awarded a Professional Development Fellowship from the College Art Association that led to his employment as graphic design coordinator at the Gilcrease Museum in 1995. Currently, Martin is an associate professor of art and art program coordinator at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah.

Martin’s artwork is exhibited and collected internationally. His work has been featured in exhibitions ranging from "Who Stole the Teepee," a traveling exhibition organized by Atlatl Inc. and the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian, to "Something More Than 'Art’: Handworks by American Indians" held at the Utsunomiya Museum of Art in Japan. His work is in the permanent collections of the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College, the Southern Plains Indian Museum, Philbrook Museum and the Gilcrease Museum.

For a complete exhibition record and curriculum vitae, please visit www.bobbycmartin.com. "Family Photo Album" will be on display in Mullins through the end of December. For more information, call (479) 575-6702 or visit http://libinfo.uark.edu/info/artexhibit.asp.