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A headshot of an Indigenous woman with dark hair pulled back into a ponytail. She leans forward looking off to the distance with a big, toothy grin. Her pose is playful but observed. She wears a black shirt, black-and-white printed scarf, and vibrant red lipstick.

Photo by Theodore Cushman.

Artists

Andrea Carlson

She // Her // Hers

Painter

Chicago, Illinois

“My attention span favors those who tell tales. I must live to be slow-walked through anecdotal observations, personal accounts, and the retelling of family histories. This is something that my practice needs and has been suffering for in isolation.”

Andrea Carlson (Ojibwe, b. 1979) is an artist and writer who moved from Minneapolis to Chicago in 2016. Through painting and drawing, Carlson cites entangled cultural narratives relating to objects and their possession and display. Her current research activities include museum studies, Indigenous futurism, and film studies. Her work has been acquired by institutions such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the National Gallery of Canada. Carlson was a 2008 McKnight Artist Fellow and has received a 2017 Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant, a 2020 3Arts Make a Wave award, and a 2021 Chicago Artadia Award.

Donor -This award was generously supported by the Builders Initiative.

This artist page was last updated on: 07.17.2024

Visual Art
A person stands with their back to the viewer with their hands on their hips in front of a large painting. The artwork features repeating imagery, reminiscent of animation cells. Together, the images create an upside down isosceles triangle.

Ink Babel by Andrea Carlson, 2015. Oil and ink on paper.

Photo by Sam Fritch.

A long horizontal painting composed of rows and columns of smaller tiled images. The overall effect being an arid landscape full of a cacophony of images, which create the effect of a pyramid at the center of the scene. At the bottom of the pyramid lies disembodied hands and a skinless face with the words "Sunshine on a cannibal" written across the bottom.

Sunshine on a Cannibal by Andrea Carlson, 2015. Ink, oil, and other media on paper.

Photo by Rik Sferra.

A diptych of a seascape; gentle waves crashing over a rocky terrain. From the left panel to the right the words “Long Weekend” are written in blue in the shape of an upturned arrow. An injector and light meter float in the sky on either side of a dark orb in the sky.

Long Weekend by Andrea Carlson, 2012. Ink, oil, acrylic on paper.

Photo by Rik Sferra.