Nicholas Galanin

Tlingit/Unangax̂/ Multi-Disciplinary Artist
Born: Sitka, AK
Lives and works

Nicholas Galanin’s (Tlingit/Unangax) work offers perspective rooted in connection to land and 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.

A Space between Life and Death, 2015

His works embody critical thought. They are vessels of knowledge, culture and technology – inherently political, generous, unflinching, and poetic. He engages past, present and future – through two and three dimensional works and time-based media – exposing obscured collective memory and barriers to the acquisition of knowledge.

The American Dream Is Alie And Well, 2012
US Flag, felt, .50 Cal Ammunition, Foam, Gold Leaf, Plastic.

He splinters tourist industry replica carvings into pieces, destroying commodification of culture and evidencing the damage. His carving practice includes cultural customary objects, petroglyphs in sidewalks and coastal rock, masks cut from anthropological texts, and engraving handcuffs used to remove Indigenous children from their families.

Beyond the walls of his studio, Galanin designs and fabricates ceramic riot gear, arrows in flight, and curio masks covered in delftware patterns, employing materials and processes to expand and forward dialogue on what artistic production is and how it can be used to envision possibility. His concepts determine his materials and processes. His practice is expansive and includes numerous collaborations with visual and recording artists. Galanin apprenticed with master carvers and jewellers, earned his BFA at London Guildhall University in Jewellery Design and his MFA in Indigenous Visual Arts at Massey University in New Zealand. He lives and works with his family in Sitka, Alaska.

I Think it Goes Like This, 2012 Wood, Paint.