Conversation with Artist Jason Lujan

"I believe that artists have a responsibility to be cultural producers and agents of social change; my art practice is an effort to invest contemporary Native American culture with an international sense of place. My work is informed by the experience of living alongside immigrant communities in New York City, a place typically characterized by sentiments of anonymity and heterogeneity. Currently over half of the total Native American population in the United States now lives in major metropolitan areas. For me, notions of reservation-based or rural lifestyles no longer accurately describes the contemporary Native experience, and arguably privileges a connection to reservation life as a marker of indigeneity that denies other more productive, specific means of locating Native culture. The recurring motif of my artwork is centered on the themes of trans-cultural and trans-national exchanges: the delivery of Indigenous content operating in conjunction with, or subsumed by, larger global contexts. I use conventional painting and sculpture methods with common and ready-made materials, often combining Eastern and Western visualities; I want people to view my work and consider multiple meanings regarding cultural assumptions." -Jason Lujan