Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Speaking the Enemy's Language

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith calls herself a cultural arts worker. She uses humor and satire to examine myths, stereotypes and the paradox of American Indian life in contrast to the consumerism of American society. Her work is philosophically centered by her strong traditional beliefs and political activism.

Smith is internationally known as an artist, curator, lecturer, printmaker and professor. She was born at St. Ignatius Mission on her Reservation and is an enrolled Salish member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation of Montana. She holds four honorary doctorates from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Arts, the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Mass College of Art and the University of New Mexico. Her work is in collections at the Whitney Museum, the Metropolitan Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Walker, the Victoria and Albert Museum, London and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Recent awards include a grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation to archive her work; the 2011 Art Table Artist Award; Moore College Visionary Woman Award for 2011; Induction into the National Academy of Art 2011; Living Artist of Distinction, Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, NM 2012; the Switzer Award for 2012; NAEA Ziegfeld Lecture Award 2014; Honorary Degree, Salish Kootenai College, Montana 2015.