Lauren Crazybull
Lauren Crazybull is an Edmonton-based Blackfoot Dene visual artist and Alberta's first provincial Artist in Residence. As a self-taught artist, Crazybull has taken interest in and almost exclusively explores Indigenous representation. She is increasingly known for her colourful and attention grabbing portraits that can be seen in galleries and murals around Western Canada. Background. Throughout her young life Crazybull grew up in the child welfare system away from her Blackfoot Dene culture and family. This is very common for Indigenous children as 52.2% of children in the child welfare system are Indigenous. This first-hand  experience has sparked Crazybull's interest in Indigenous advocacy and has greatly affected her life. Her background in the child welfare system can be seen in her artwork like her map of Alberta. Crazybull's art has become a process and expression that demands for justice and brings to light colonial oppression. She uses her platform to tell her story and highlights the destructive actions of Canada and how this has affected her family and other Indigenous peoples. Four years before committing to her full time career in visual art, Crazybull worked at a broadcasting radio discussing Indigenous oppression and  the radicalized struggles Indigenous peoples must face. Following this, she worked as an art co-ordinator with at-risk youth for two years. Career. Lauren Crazybull focuses on portraits of contemporary young Indigenous people. In 2018, the Canadian Art commissioned her to paint a mural for Edmonton's DC3 Gallery. In 2019, Crazybull prepared a solo exhibition at The Aviary in Edmonton as well as an exhibition called The Future All At Once, in Edmonton’s McMullen Gallery. In 2019 she was one of the 30 finalists for the Kingston Prize, a Canada-wide competition for portrait painting, for her  painting, "Power & Vulnerability." In 2020, TIME Magazine commissioned her to paint the portrait of Wilma Mankiller for 100 Women of the Year project. Conor McNally's documentary focusing on her life and work, IIKAAKIIMAAT, provides viewers with a personal story of resiliency has been shown at the LA Skin Fest and the imageNATIVE. Themes and Advocacy. Lauren Crazybull uses her art as an outlet for expression, activism, and advocacy, for Indigenous peoples of Canada. The artist reveals how her art is born out of outrage she holds towards the child welfare system and what it stole from her, what residential  schools robbed from her family, and the dismissal of Indigenous culture that created “Canada”. She tries to imagine a world without colonialism in her art and life. Crazybull sees art as a chance to control her own narrative and future. Her work is often inspired by her family, Indigenous background, and experiences she witnesses around the oppression of her people. In C Magazine, Crazybull talks about her inspiration in a piece she made with Faye HeavyShield called “Gather”, she describes how she “took these unpeopled, solitary photos of the land in Blackfoot Territory, then I looked at images of past  gatherings that were important to me, like of my family’s annual justice walk for my late aunt Jackie Crazybull, and of the time me and my siblings went to Nose Hill Park to learn why it was an important Blackfoot landmark”. Crazybull uses inspiration from all things around her to create meaning in her work. As a result, she aspires to stir up stereotypes and power hierarchies between Indigenous peoples and settlers in her portraiture. By examining the dynamics of traditional portraits, Crazybull shifts the power dynamic in her Indigenous portraiture by painting the sitters to stare straight at  the viewer, to interrogate and create an unease in the gaze cast onto them. Alberta Artist in Residence. In 2019, Crazybull was appointed Alberta's first provincial Artist in Residence. With roughly over 100 other applicants, Crazybull was the first to ever hold the job. The position came with a grant and responsibilities that include attending cultural events and serving as an advocate for artists. Her residency culminated in a solo exhibition titled "TSIMA KOHTOTSITAPIIHPA Where are you from?" from January 24 - April 4, 2020 at Latitude 53. She compiled personal stories and experiences from Indigenous artists and other residents  of the Blackfoot Confederacy to use in her Indigenous art map of Alberta. The map is seen from the point of view of Indigenous peoples and highlights their close relationship to their land. The piece is a large map of Alberta from “our eyes” as she refers to the Indigenous peoples and their land. The artist made the painting to share knowledge while still asking her audience to reflect and imagine the land before colonization and “be more mindful about where they stand.” Crazybull has used this project and funding from the government to reconnect to her culture, land, and  home. She expresses how she decided to accept the grant money from the Alberta government to reclaim what she had lost as an Indigenous child who spent most of her young life in the welfare system.