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About the artist

Frank Buffalo Hyde

Nez Perce / Onondaga Nation and Beaver Clan

b. 1974

Frank Buffalo Hyde grew up surrounded by traditional Native American art. He had artists on both sides of his family and his parents met at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA). From an early age, however, Hyde knew he wanted to make his own mark. Born in Santa Fe and raised on his mother’s Onandaga reservation, Hyde saught to dismantle stereotypes of Native American culture with his work by taking imagery from pop culture, politics, films, television shows, etc. and overlaps the references to replicate what he refers to as “the collective unconsciousness of the 21st century. In his painting series “In-Appropriate,” Hyde paints satirical portraits of people wearing “jacked-up portrayal(s) of Native American imagery” that are at once funny and revolting. Hyde overtly defies the aesthetics of what people might think Native American art “should” look like, including subjects such as selfie-sticks, iPhones, cheerleaders and plates of buffalo wings. His narrative series I-Witness Culture explores life as a Native American in the digital age. Hyde’s work addresses contemporary America’s fear of the “other,” and the tendency to homogenize indigenous cultures to counter this fear (which ultimately materializes as racist mascots and costumes). Hyde’s work has been exhibited internationally, and he was artist-in-residence at the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts in Santa Fe.
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