10 X 10 Exhibit Artist Biographies
“10 x 10: A creative exchange between visual artists and writers”
Artist Teams - Noelle Garcia, nila northSun
Noelle Garcia was born in Reno, Nevada in 1984. Noelle received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2007. During her BFA career Noelle was awarded the Emilie Hesmeyer Memorial Award and The Klamath Tribes Scholarship. She also participated in the Oxbow School of Art in 2007 where she received the Barna Memorial Award. Noelle is currently in the UNLV Masters of Fine Arts program and expects to graduate in May 2012. During her attendance at UNLV Noelle has been awarded the American Indian Graduate Center Fine Arts Scholarship and has participated in the National Museum of the American Indian Emerging Artist Fellowship. Noelle’s work is narrative; a form of storytelling. Although her work has a sense of catharsis, Noelle’s work also offers a glimpse into the contemporary American Indian experience and into personal family relationships. Noelle uses photos of family members such as her deceased father and her many estranged siblings for reference. “The feeling of forgetting my family distresses me. I feel that the loss of memory and family also creates a loss of my own identity. I fear being cultureless. So I am forced to construct my own identity and family through research and imagination. The process of making artwork about my family brings me closer to the people I long for. Through my art process I am able to have a relationship with deceased loved ones such as my father.”
Noelle Garcia, Dad Regalia, mixed media (found jacket, beer bottle caps, wire) 2011
Noelle Garcia, Native Tools (detail), felt, glass beads 2011
nila northSun reading “The Coat”, "Falling Down to Bed", and "The Art of Living Poorly". Her poems accompany Noelle Garcia's artworks in the “10 x 10” exhibition at the Government Center Rotunda Gallery.
Watch Youtube Video here.
nila northSun, Shoshone/Chippewa, has been writing poetry for over 3 decades and her books include: diet pepsi & nacho cheese; Coffee, Dust Devils and Old Rodeo Bulls (with Kirk Robertson); small bones, little eyes (with Jim Sagel) ; a snake in her mouth: poems, 1974-96; love at gunpoint 2007; and whipped cream & sushi published in 2009. She’s received the Silver Pen award from the University of Nevada, Reno, the Indigenous Heritage award from Atayl out of Florida and a Sierra Arts Foundation Literary Award. She lives and works in Reno.
Read art of living poorly (PDF)