Haley Greenfeather English describes her new show in terms that sound almost like a free association exercise: "long drives, whimsy, nostalgia, love, shadows, clowns, grief, and birds." That might seem like a lot to hold in a single body of work, but for the Red Lake and Turtle Mountain Ojibwe artist, the unexpected accumulation is the point.
The work is immediately arresting: vibrant, near-psychedelic color that seems to push off the wall, characters caught in moments that are by turns touching and absurd, and the recurring conviction, treated as fact, that birds are real. Over the past several years, grief has moved to the center of Greenfeather English's practice, but not in ways that dim it. Speaking on A Creative Excuse, she put it plainly: "despite it all, there is joy and whimsy out there, and those things are really powerful. They're things that heal us, and they heal the people around us, and I don't think they get enough love in this world." A Heavy Birden is structured around that belief.
Grief, for Greenfeather English, is not a problem to be solved or a phase to be exited. She has come to understand it as "a living organism within you — it never really leaves and it never stays the same; it changes, moves and grows with you." The paintings carry that understanding without performing it. When asked on the podcast what got her through her own extended stretch of loss, she pointed not to art-making but to the people around her: "I have at least created these really authentic, beautiful relationships where people deeply care about me. And that, more than anything... carried me through it." A friend offered her an image that stuck: all the grief creates holes in the heart, and it's your job to either fill those with good things or leave them hollow.
This is Greenfeather English's first solo show since earning her BFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts in 2018, where she developed a practice grounded in painting and printmaking, shaped by keen observation, personal stories, and memory. She's been working steadily in the years since: teaching children through Working Classroom in Albuquerque, making murals throughout the region, sewing, printing, staying close to community. She's selective about where her paintings go, preferring relationships that feel real over institutional exposure for its own sake. "I'm just waiting for somebody to ask and see if the vibe is right," she said on the podcast, adding that she'd rather spend time with youth painting something than show in a context that feels hollow.
She's a precise observer of her own process, and honest about its irregularities. On A Creative Excuse, she described what it feels like when a body of work is going right: "when I would hit the point in my day where I was dancing and my headphones on, actually moving around, playing with my dog for a second, I'm fully seeing myself. That's how I know I'm doing good. I'm in a flow." She also described what it felt like to stop making work for a long stretch after consecutive losses: "I'm not a painter anymore." She came back gradually, but with the awareness that painting is where she's most exposed. "All the things that I made are so beautiful to me," she said, "but some more scary too."
The work she's created is layered, as the exhibition text describes it, "with complicated stories, forgotten memories, quiet wishes, and silly little laughs hand in hand with grief." That reads accurately in front of the paintings. So does the Snoopy hidden in there: yes, there are two, and you'll have to find the other one yourself, which should tell you something about the register she's working in, and how seriously she takes it.