As a visual artist, subject matter, color and the imagination are important issues to me. I use a canvas and oil paints to tell visual stories about current realities of the world around me. With monotypes, I am able to access stories that are more intuitive. Employing a mainstream art education coupled with my Ojibwe identity, I combine principles of modern art with a tradition of story telling in an effort to produce colorful images that are original and creative. My imaginative and sophisticated interpretations can be of cultural, social, political and personal issues and often they overlap.

The Prophecy was inspired by the joke going around Indian country, “Why is the white man so interested in going to the moon? Because they think Indians have land up there.” This painting started out to be a humorous piece about the traditional exploitation of Indian lands for minerals and oil. As the story developed on canvas, it became clear that the focus would be more so on the impending fresh water shortages that promise to affect the entire world in the not so distant future. The water pump offers the last drop of water, the fish skeletons speak of former lakes and rivers.

Not long after deciding to do this painting, George Bush announced plans to send men to the Moon and to Mars. So I decided to include a U.S. space station housed in a White Castle hamburger restaurant acknowledging a lack of confidence in the policies of the current administration.

Jim Denomie