CURATOR’S STATEMENT

We have teeth too showcases powerful works by Natalie Ball, Jordan Ann Craig, Emma Robbins, and Amanda Roy.

Originally inspired by the work of Amanda Roy, the title of this show serves as a double meaning. We have teeth too is first and foremost an exhibition exploring what it means to be human and thus serves to disrupt Western notions of purity by focusing on various intersections of identity. On their own and together, the works included in this exhibition inspire a collective call to action, which is rooted in deep connections to community and conversations about representation in the arts. Contemporary pieces span a wide range of mixed media including sculpture, painting, and photography with ties to the complex histories of portraiture, quiltmaking, Indigenous quillwork, and regalia.

We have teeth too features an interdisciplinary selection of current works that fearlessly touch on human rights violations across North America. New sculpture calls attention to the ongoing fight for educational institutions to repatriate Native remains to the communities they were wrongfully taken from, while delicate works on paper bring more awareness to the detrimental effects of radon poisoning happening in the Southwest today. Side by side, this collection of artwork challenges us to see how we can turn lines of division into genuine pathways that lead to greater social accountability and more meaningful connections that exist beyond the binary.

In the face of incredible pushback, women of color have often been the backbone of historical movements and important change. Artists such as the ones featured in this exhibition have undeniably been instrumental in the progression toward justice. We — Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) — have literally stood on the front lines for centuries demanding respect for the land, our loved ones, and our livelihoods. It is my hope that We have teeth too reminds everyone that BIPOC are fully human, and despite both past and present circumstances, we possess the right to smile when we are victorious and bite back when our future depends on it.

— Natani Notah

We respectfully acknowledge that the Berkeley Art Center is on the traditional native land of the Chochenyo Ohlone people, who have stewarded it throughout the generations. Learn how you can acknowledge ancestral lands.

About the Artists

NATALIE BALL was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. She has a bachelor’s degree with a double major in Ethnic Studies and Art from the University of Oregon. She furthered her education in New Zealand at Massey University, where she attained her master’s degree, focusing on Indigenous contemporary art. Ball then relocated to her ancestral homelands to raise her three children. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally, including Half Gallery (New York); Vancouver Art Gallery; Nino Mier Gallery (Los Angeles); Portland Art Museum; Gagosian Gallery (New York); Seattle Art Museum; Almine Rech Gallery (Paris); and SculptureCenter (New York). Natalie attained her MFA in Painting & Printmaking at Yale School of Art in 2018.

JORDAN ANN CRAIG is a Northern Cheyenne artist born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. She received her BA from Dartmouth College. Her work includes painting, prints, collages, textile prints, and artist books. In 2017, Jordan was awarded the H. Allen Brooks Traveling Fellowship as well as the Eric and Barbara Dobkin Fellowship at the School for Advanced Research. In 2019, Jordan was an artist-in-resident at the Institute of American Indian Arts (Santa Fe, NM), as well as the Roswell Artist-in-Residence Program. Currently, she is painting and printing in Roswell, New Mexico.

EMMA ROBBINS is a Diné artist, activist, and environmentalist with a passion for empowering Indigenous women. As director of the Navajo Water Project, part of the human rights nonprofit DigDeep Water, she is working to create infrastructure that brings clean running water to the one in three Navajo families without it. Through her artwork, she strives to raise awareness about the lack of clean water in Native American nations and educate viewers about issues such as the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women crisis. Robbins completed her BFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and studied Modern Latin American Art History in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She has exhibited both in the United States and internationally, and is a 2020 Aspen Institute Healthy Communities Fellow. She splits her time between Los Angeles and the Navajo Nation.

AMANDA ROY is Anishinaabe from the community of Buzwah, which is a part of Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory, on Manitoulin Island in the Great Lakes. She has worked with the National Film Board’s Hothouse Animation Apprenticeship Program as an associate producer and has also worked on film, television, and digital media projects in various roles with several Indigenous production companies. She spent two years living in Northern Quebec assisting Secondary School students with learning video game production while traveling among communities supporting the Cree Syllabics Virtual Reality Project, a program for learning Cree syllabics in an immersive and interactive virtual environment. Her father is an accomplished Woodland artist while her mother is known for her beadwork, both of whom gave her a taste for art. Amanda is a Hnatyshyn Foundation Reveal Indigenous Art Award Laureate and a Netflix–Banff Diversity of Voices Fellow.

She is currently working on her own animation short films along with developing several other art projects. Amanda is also a member of Breathe., a collection of traditionally crafted masks demonstrating resiliency through 21st century pandemic, which will be touring across Canadian museums for the next several years.

About the Curator

NATANI NOTAHis an interdisciplinary artist and a proud member of the Navajo Nation. Her current art practice explores contemporary Native American identity through the lens of Diné womanhood. Notah has exhibited her work at institutions, such as Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (BMoCA); Marin Museum of Contemporary Art (Marin MOCA); Wattis Institute of Contemporary Art, San Francisco; Massillon Museum (MassMu), Ohio; apexart, New York City; NXTHVN, New Haven; Tucson Desert Art Museum, Tucson; Gas Gallery, Los Angeles; Mana Contemporary, Chicago, and elsewhere. Notah has received awards from Art Matters, International Sculpture Center, and the San Francisco Foundation. Her work has been featured in Artforum, Art in America, Hyperallergic, Forbes, and Sculpture Magazine and she has completed artist residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, Grounds for Sculpture, Headlands Center for the Arts, This Will Take Time, Oakland, and Kala Art Institute. Notah holds a BFA with a minor in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Cornell University and an MFA from Stanford University. Currently she is a 2021-2023 Tulsa Artist Fellow.