ARTIST ROOM BY DOUGLAS MILES

HEAVY INFLUENCE

From the Artist - Douglas Miles:
In New Mexico (and Arizona) the influence of Native American people is felt and seen on almost all aspects of the community.  Whether governance, farming, canal building, art or  architecture, Native innovation is never ending. Nativo Lodge takes the rich Native American art tradition turning it into an opportunity showcase for Native Artists. It also shares the heavy influence of Native art and architecture in the Southwest. My mural room is done primarily with aerosol, utilizing hand drawn images and some hand-cut stencils. The painting installation techniques are based on street-art and graffiti methods giving the work a sense of immediacy missing from much art. I painted “top to bottom” Indian male and female faces gracing walls to commemorate contributions by the original citizen occupants of New Mexico. I draw on my own Western Apache history using imagery I’ve created that honors and boldly places Native people both in and outside of contemporary society.

About Douglas Miles:
Douglas Miles is from the San Carlos Apache Nation in Arizona. Using street art forms, he creates work that simultaneously deconstructs stereotypes and emboldens Native people in the 21st century. His renegade ethos at work creates a new iconography in art, photos, and film. Miles’ work has been exhibited at Princeton University, Columbia University, the DeYoung Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Native Art in Santa Fe. He recently collaborated with actor and author Ethan Hawke and artist Greg Ruth on a New York Times bestseller graphic novel, “Indeh: A Story of the Apache Wars.” His new documentary about his company Apache Skateboards, "The Mystery of Now " is forthcoming.