Duane Slick
Native American painter and professor (born 1961)
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Duane Slick (born 1961)[1] is a Meskwaki artist and educator of Ho-Chunk descent. He is known for his work influenced by his heritage, and for his series of prints and paintings depicting coyotes – a trickster character in Native cultures.
University of California, Davis
Duane Slick | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1961 (age 64–65) Waterloo, Iowa, U.S. |
| Citizenship | Sac and Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa, and U.S. |
| Alma mater | University of Northern Iowa University of California, Davis |
| Occupations | Artist, Professor |
Early life and education
Duane Slick was born 1961 in Waterloo, Iowa, to a Meskwaki father and a Ho-Chunk mother.[2][3]
He received a BFA degree in painting and a BA degree in Art Education from the University of Northern Iowa in 1986.[4] Slick completed an MFA degree in 1990 in painting from the University of California, Davis.[5] While at UC Davis, he was mentored by artist George Longfish.[6] He previously taught at Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, New Mexico, from 1992 to 1995.[7] Since 1995, Slick has taught printmaking and painting at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD).[2]
Work
The image of a coyote head as well as its shadow has become his "signature leitmotif" in his paintings and prints. Slick has stated that by "depicting coyote’s shadow, he returns metaphysical autonomy to a folk art object drained of its original intention through capitalism."[8]
He has taught fine arts at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) since 1995.[2][9]
In 2010, he was a resident at School for Advanced Research (SAR), where he created his work Field Mouse Goes to War.[10] In 2012, Slick was awarded the Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship, and his work was included in the associated group exhibition, We Are Here!.[11]
His first solo museum exhibition, The Coyote Makes the Sunset Better, premiered in 2022 at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum.[12][13]
Slick was also a co-curator of Marking Resilience: Indigenous North American Prints, a 2023 exhibition staged by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.[14]
Collections
Slick's work is included in several public art collections including the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution,[15] Milwaukee Art Museum,[16] Chazen Museum of Art,[17] Danforth Art Museum,[18] and the Des Moines Art Center,[19] among others.