15 Each day is a balancing act between the personal and spiritual, the business world and the art world, says the soft-spoken Shawnee and Seminole Indian artist Benjamin Harjo Jr. That search, laced with a fair amount of good-natured humor, has endeared the ’74 OSU art alumnus’ work to Oklahomans and Indian art lovers all over the nation. Phil Shockley PORTRAIT Harjo has made his name eschewing romanticized notions of Indian art. There are no images of teepees or buffalo hunts in his work. Instead, he draws upon his heritage and whimsical sense of humor shown in bright acrylic and gouache paintings, pen and inks and woodblock prints inspired by Native American fables, spirituality and religions. Those works have appeared in museums ranging from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian to the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Ariz. Harjo’s Art, on Balance “Sometimes I ask people what they see in my work because some of it has no story,” he says. “It’s just because I wanted to paint. Some of it doesn’t have a story until I finish it. And then I come up with a meaning to it.” His work has a dark side to it as well. The Age of Sacrifice depicts an Indian prophet heralding a time of suffering and strife. The prophet’s weather-beaten face has whited-out eyes against a background of sharp black and white squares and an image of a snake taken from Central American civilizations, which Harjo uses to explain how he sees alienation of modern Indians from their past. “We’ve always had people in religion who were prophets — the same thing with Indian people. We’ve always had medicine men who would tell what was going to happen in the future, and I really don’t know if we have any of those people today,” he says. “You know, when you live close to the earth, you can predict things. By moving away from the earth, by living in houses, by CONTINUES STORY BY Matt Elliott
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