Nationality
American, Spirit Lake Dakota / Diné
Preview
Date of Work
2024
Medium
Colored pencil on ledger paper dated 1906
Signature
Bottom right
Height
16
Width
10 1/2"
Collection/Provenance
Contemporary Indigenous Art Collection
Purchased at the North Dakota Museum of Art for the Contemporary Indigenous Art Collection in 2026.
Status
Stored: FF_005_B
Location
UND Art Collections Repository
Artist Bio
From the artist's website:
Avis Charley (Spirit Lake Dakota / Diné) was born and raised in Los Angeles, California (Long Beach). She attended the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, earning her BFA in 2018 and MFA in Studio Arts in 2025.
Charley began her practice with ledger art, bringing a Native woman's perspective into a form historically shaped by men. She later transitioned to oil paintings, centering women to examine movement, memory, and Indigenous life from ancestral homelands to the present day. Her work traces how women adapt, protect, and carry knowledge across place and generations.
"My worldview is rooted in presence and skanskan, a Dakota philosophical understanding of the world as constant motion. Nothing is fixed. People move. Stories move. Identities evolve. I paint from that understanding.
I paint women as dynamic individuals, sharing their histories, choices, humor, style, and strength. I think about gesture, adornment, and environment as places where emotional and historical weight lives quietly. Through layering, I create work that moves between beauty and tension, making space for women to be seen in their full complexity.
Painting is both representation and record — made with love, accuracy, and responsibility for future generations."
Additional Information
A man in red and blue and a woman in pink are depicted holding hands and looking at one another. There is a yellow circle depicting a sun at the top of the page. Each figure is devoid of facial features.
Condition
Excellent