Joe Harjo (b.1973 Oklahoma City, OK) is a multidisciplinary artist from the Muscogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma and is currently working and teaching in San Antonio, TX. He holds a BFA in Visual Arts from the University of Central Oklahoma and an MFA from the University of Texas at San Antonio.
His work uncovers the lack of visibility of Native culture, lived experience and identity in America, due to both the absence of proper representation in mainstream culture and the undermining of Native belief systems. He confronts the misrepresentation and appropriation of Native culture and identity, initiating a call for change.
Recent exhibitions include: Mutable Land, Nars Foundation Satellite Exhibition, Governor’s Island, New York, NY; High Visibility: On Location in Rural America and Indian Country, Plains Art Museum, Fargo, ND; The Only Certain Way, Sala Diaz, San Antonio, TX; Texas, We’re Listening, Brownsville Museum of Art, Brownsville, TX; We’re Still Here: Native American Artists Then and Now, McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, TX; Monarchs: Brown and Native Contemporary Artists in the Path of the Butterfly, Blue Star Contemporary, San Antonio, TX; Reimagining the Third Space, KCAI Crossroads Gallery: Center for Contemporary Practice, Kansas City, Missouri; re/thinking photography: Conceptual Photography from Texas, FotoFest, Houston, Texas.
Harjo is a 2022 Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture Resident Alumni, a 2020-2021 Harpo Foundation Native American Residency Fellow, and a recipient of the 2022-2023 Blue Star Contemporary Berlin Residency hosted by Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Germany. His work has recently been acquired by the San Antonio Museum of Art.