Featuring more than thirty works, this exhibition honors the career of artist Ben Aleck, a lifelong educator and enrolled member of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe (Kooyooe Tukadu/cui-ui fish eaters.) Aleck was born in Reno in 1949 and raised on the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony (RSIC). A graduate of Wooster High School, he attended the California College of Arts and Crafts (now California College of the Arts) in Oakland, California, where he witnessed the politics and protest of the Vietnam War era and the countercultural movement of the late 1960s. His past involvement with the American Indian Movement (AIM) and the American Indian Occupation of Alcatraz have also shaped his artistic practice. Aleck’s paintings, illustrations, and prints give visual form to Indigenous stories about the stars, coyote, plants, the formation of Great Basin lands, and the origins of its people.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a book with an essay by Melissa Melero-Moose.
For the duration of the exhibition, all members of tribal communities will be offered free admission.
Sponsors
Sandy Raffealli | Bill Pearce Motors
The Phil and Jennifer Satre Family Fund at the Community Foundation of Northern Nevada
Six Talents Foundation
Supporting Sponsors
Carole Anderson
Additional Support
Kathie Bartlett
Nevada Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities
Sylvia and Jim Thacker
