Artist Conversation: Jordan Ann Craig
About the event
Jordan Ann Craig has developed her own visual lexicon of color and form, including interwoven and at times infinite patterns and grids that are rooted in her research of Indigenous objects. Craig’s work celebrates her Native ancestry, posing questions about the languages of modern abstract painting and their relationship to both historic and contemporary indigenous culture.
Craig’s practice is grounded in research that begins in museum collections and archives. Her pictorial vocabulary builds upon initial inspiration from Northern Cheyenne and Cheyenne beadwork, quillwork, drawings, and textiles and reflects their specific recurring patterning. In the large-scale and brightly colored to you my happy girl (2025), Craig enlarges these motifs, emphasizing the gridded framework used to map out beadwork patterns. The layered ridges produced in her painterly grids create a textural surface akin to the layering of textiles found in Cheyenne quilt making, as if she is weaving with paint. The two panels of this diptych are hung with a narrow space between them to echo the two sections found in Native breastplate designs.
Join artist Jordan Ann Craig and curator Andrew Hamilton for a conversation about her work.
This program is made possible by the Carol Given Winston Fund for Docent and Patron Education.
About the Speakers
If you have any questions about programming, please reach out to museum-programs@artic.edu.
Closed captioning will be available for this program. For questions related to accessibility accommodations, please email access@artic.edu.
