In the solo exhibition, Brenda Mallory includes prints, multi-media and installation artworks to consider the complex relationships and structures of power and identity.  In the Absence of Instruction explores an intersection of themes from the past and present to express new forms of cultural knowledge despite historical disruption.  

Brenda Mallory is a multi-disciplinary artist primarily working in mixed media sculptural works comprised of a variety of materials including cloth, fibers, beeswax, and found objects.  By creating multiple forms that are joined with crude hardware that imply tenuous connections or repairs, her work addresses ideas of interference in long-established systems of nature and human cultures.

Mallory lives in Portland, Oregon but grew up in Oklahoma and is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. She holds a BA in Linguistics & English from UCLA and a BFA from Pacific Northwest College of Art. She is a recipient of the The Hallie Ford Fellowship, the Eiteljorg Contemporary Native Art Fellowship, the Native Arts and Culture Foundation Fellowship in Visual Art and the Ucross Native Fellowship.

A citizen of the Cherokee Nation who grew up in Oklahoma, lived experience deeply informs her practice, as do the histories of survival inherent to Indigenous peoples.

• Contributors:
  Brenda Mallory
  Shana Bushyhead Condill
  Laura Da'
  Veronica Passalacqua