This body of work confronts the colonial gaze and the reclamation of Indigenous imagery. It revisits imagery made famous by a certain O’Keeffe, who lived and painted on Tewa Pueblo ancestral lands, drawing inspiration from the surrounding landscape and found objects. These lands hold the histories of many Indigenous peoples, including Tewa, Ute, Comanche, Apache, Diné, and Hopi.

As a Diné artist, I return to the skull and blossom through my own cultural lens. For the Diné, every part of the sheep is honored through every stage of life, from birth to death, and thereafter. Squash is one of our four sacred plants. Together, these forms hold histories of relationship, survival, and cultural continuity that extend far beyond their representation as aesthetic objects claimed through colonizer ownership.

This work asks who has the authority to interpret Indigenous subjects, whose perspectives become part of art history, and whose cultural knowledge is overlooked. Through reclamation, I assert my authority to represent these subjects on my own terms.