Wendy Red Star
By Bob Hicks
Wendy Red Star, who lives in Portland and whose work is in permanent art collections nationally and internationally from the British Museum to the Denver, Baltimore and Portland museums of art; the Metropolitan, Whitney, and Museum of Modern Art in New York; and beyond, has been named the winner of 2024’s Bonnie Bronson Visual Arts Fellowship.
The fellowship, named for the prominent Oregon artist who died in a mountain climbing accident in 1990, is awarded annually to an artist living and working in the Northwest. It comes with a $10,000 cash prize and the purchase of a piece of art to be added to the Bonnie Bronson Collection housed at Reed College.
Red Star, a member of the Apsáalooke (Crow) Nation, was born in Billings, Mont., near the Crow Indian Reservation, and much of her art springs from the disparities between those roots and flawed historical narratives about Native life.
Red Star will be honored with a reception from 5 to 6:30 p.m. Saturday, May 18, in the Kaul Auditorium foyer at Reed College. It’s free and open to the public.
Red Star joins an impressive list of Bronson fellowship winners, listed here chronologically from the first award in 1992: Christine Bourdette, Judy Cooke, Ronna Neuenschwander, Fernanda D’Agostino, Carolyn King, Lucinda Parker, Judy Hill, Adriene Cruz, Helen Lessick, Ann Hughes, Malia Jensen, Christopher Rauschenberg, Kristy Edmunds, Paul Sitinen, Bill Will, Laura Ross-Paul, M.E. Guth, Marie Watt, David Eckard, Nan Curtis, Pat Boas, Wynne Greenwood, Vanessa Redwick, Cynthia Lahti, Lynne Woods Turner, Susie Lee, Kristan Kennedy, Tannaz Farsi, Natalie Ball, Ed Bereal, Dawn Cerny and Samantha Wall (co-winners in 2022), and Dana Lynn Louis.
Photo: Wendy Red Star, “Apsáalooka Feminist No. 4,” 2016, archival pigment print, 35 x 42 inches
