Nicholas Galanin is a Tlingit/Unangax̂ multidisciplinary artist. His work offers perspective rooted in connection to land and an intentionally broad engagement with contemporary culture. For over a decade, Galanin has been embedding incisive observation into his work, investigating and expanding intersections of culture and concept in form, image, and sound. Galanin's works embody critical thought. They are vessels of knowledge, culture and technology—inherently political, generous, unflinching, and poetic. Galanin’s concepts determine his materials and processes. His practice is expansive and includes numerous collaborations with visual and recording artists. He is a member of two artist collectives: Black Constellation and Winter Count.
Out of Line: Nicholas Galanin Rejects the Traditional/Contemporary Binary
While Nicholas Galanin’s art often melds disparate elements—an AR-15 modified with Tlingit engraving, a mashup of Princess Leia and a 1906 photo of a Hopi-Tew woman, a bearskin rug clad in a US flag—he rejects a binary often applied to his work: the one that divides it into contemporary and traditional elements. “Like colonial national borders cutting through land and people who have lived here longer than those invented lines, these lines drawn through creative production are also an attempt to control.”