Marty
Two Bulls Jr.
He // Him // His
[ID: A headshot of a brown man with two brown braids on either side of his head. He looks directly at the viewer with a stoic expression. He is wearing a jean jacket and a yellow beaded necklace.]
Rapid City, SD
2022 USA Fellow
This award was generously supported by the USA Board of Trustees.
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Marty Two Bulls Jr. is an artist and educator based in Rapid City, South Dakota. Two Bulls is an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe and was raised in the High Plains of South Dakota.
He comes from a family of diverse artists. His father, Marty Two Bulls Sr., is an accomplished artist and was his first art instructor. He grew up in his father’s studio, where he learned the fundamentals of sculpture, illustration, graphic design, and, most importantly, how to make a living as a creative person. Two Bulls eventually went on to study printmaking and ceramics at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, where he earned a bachelor’s in fine arts in 2011. After graduation, he spent several years in Santa Fe developing his art practice and working in contemporary art galleries, where he worked with a plethora of contemporary artists from around the world.
In 2017, he was offered a full-time faculty position with Oglala Lakota College (OLC) to teach art. He jumped at the opportunity to return to his homelands and work with his tribal community. Since returning home, Two Bulls has created a graphic arts program at OLC and continues to work as a positive force for the arts in his communities both near and far.
Portrait photo by Johnny Sundby.
Lakota Quarantine Flag (Red Shirt Table Health Checkpoint), 2020. Printed fabric, sorrow, bravery, fear, wind, sun, rain, and hail, dimensions 25 × 23 inches. Photo by Ashley Pourier.[ID: A framed black and white printed fabric on a bright yellow background. The abstract geometric shapes of the illustration are arranged to look like the Oglala Sioux Tribe flag, a sunlike pattern. Borders of very small, illegible text, frame the illustration like newspaper columns. The right side of the fabric frays into the yellow background.]
Gee Chee Mon Unsica, 2019. Glazed ceramic, dimensions 12 × 4 × 6 inches. Photo by Willi White.[ID: A cylinder shaped sculpture with a rounded top and two antlers protruding on either side. Black paint covers the top half of the otherwise white sculpture, with the exception of two white, cartoonish eyes which drip as though they are crying.]
Please, Please, Please, 2014. Ink, rag paper, found paper, Chine-colle, silk screen, dimensions 22 × 30 inches. Photo by Da-ka-xeen Mehner.[ID: A multimedia collage composed of images of people, maps, and buildings cut into diamond shapes and arranged into an 8 pointed star that radiates outward. At the center of the star is the skeleton of a buffalo. The background is red splattered paint. The word “funerals” is painted in white cursive at the top.]