Working with Kin: Exhibition Guide

Heidi Brandow explores confluence and communication in her work, materially and conceptually. She grew up in a family of Native Hawaiian musicians and Diné (Navajo) storytellers, and her influences span the globe—from the Japanese Superflat movement to Turkish street art. Brandow has exhibited with form & concept since we opened in 2016. 

Working with Kin, Brandow’s inaugural curatorial effort at the gallery, traces the roots of her intersectional practice. The show is a dimensional biography of her life, uniting friends and mentors who have shaped her path. Conceptual and aesthetic influences flow in every direction, offering new context for each artist’s work.

“The artists I chose are asking a lot of the same questions, and not accepting the status quo of what art or Native art should be,” Brandow says.

Heidi Brandow is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work is commonly filled with whimsical characters and monsters that are often combined with words of poetry, stories and personal reflections.

Hailing from a long line of Native Hawaiian singers, musicians and performers on her mother’s side and Diné storytellers and medicine people on her father’s side, she finds that her pursuit of an artistic career came natural. Brandow's work concerns discovering, defining, and redefining personal identity by questioning authority and deconstructing mainstream assumptions of Native Americans. Brandow’s work engages personal, cultural, and historical experiences while incorporating perspectives of critical theory.

Brandow's paintings are a part of the permanent collection at the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the Hunter Museum of American Art in Chatanooga, Tennessee, and the Luciano Benetton Collection in Italy.Heidi K. Brandow is a graduate of the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA and has studied design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Istanbul Technical University in Istanbul, Turkey.