Interdisciplinary artist Natani Notah explores contemporary Native American identity through the lens of Diné womanhood. Her practice purposefully and thoughtfully marries unexpected natural and synthetic materials to evoke dialogue and conversation about resisting colonization in the present-day United States of America. Inner Lining brings together multiple bodies of work, such as The Emancipation of Mia and Natural American Landscapes, that remind us how Native American representation and cultural objects have been appropriated and commodified by American commercial interests. The exhibition also highlights Notah’s ongoing series of soft sculptures made from secondhand garments and sentimental clothing gifted to the artist by her family members. She partners the worn textiles with faux fur, leather scraps, and intricate seed beading, then stuffs them with plastic corn pellets. Together the materials form weighted, poseable sculptures that resemble limbs or a body that cannot be fixed or defined. Though Notah uses abstraction and minimal forms to communicate with the viewer, her sculptures nurture understanding and respect across cultural divides through their aesthetic richness and compelling presence.

About the Artist
Natani Notah is an interdisciplinary artist and a proud member of the Navajo Nation. Her current artistic practice explores contemporary Native American identity through the lens of Diné womanhood. Notah has exhibited her work at numerous institutions, including apexart, New York City; NXTHVN, New Haven, CT; Tucson Desert Art Museum, Tucson, AZ; Gas Gallery, Los Angeles; Mana Contemporary, Chicago; and SOMArts Cultural Center, San Francisco. She has received awards from Art Matters, International Sculpture Center, and the San Francisco Foundation. Her work has been featured in Art in America, Hyperallergic, Forbes, and Sculpture Magazine, and she has completed 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. She is currently a 2021-2023 Tulsa Artist Fellow.

Thank you to our generous sponsors:
Scintilla Foundation, Nicky Wolman & David Fulker, Sue Schweppe, City of Boulder, Boulder Arts Commission, Scientific & Cultural Facilities District, Colorado Creative Industries, National Endowment for the Arts, Splashlight Studio and Joan Markowitz.