Background

Norman Akers was born on October 25, 1958, in Fairfax, Oklahoma, United States. He grew up in Oklahoma on the Osage reservations, which is part of what inspired his work.

Education

Norman Akers received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1982, and a Certificate in Museum Studies from the Institute of American Indian Arts in 1983. In 1991, he received a Master of Fine Arts in Fine Arts from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Career

Before coming to the University of Kansas, Norman Akers taught painting and drawing at the Institute of American Indian Arts in New Mexico. In addition to his teaching appointment in Visual Art, he serves as affiliate faculty for the Indigenous Studies Program at the University of Kansas.

Also, Norman Akers worked in Bacone College, Museum of Fine Arts, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as a visiting assistant professor of art.

Akers had solo exhibitions at the Lawrence Arts Center, Lawrence, Kansas, Jan Cicero Gallery in Chicago, Illinois, and the Gardner Art Gallery, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma. He participated in numerous group exhibitions including, Art for a New Understanding; Native Voices 1950s to Now, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, Who Stole the Tee Pee?, National Museum of American Indian Art, Gustave Heye Center, Smithsonian Museum, New York City, New York, and Pathology of Symbols, I Space, Chicago, Illinois.

His paintings are in several collections including the Heard Museum, Phoenix, Arizona, Eiteljorg Museum, Indianapolis, Indiana, National Museum of the American Indian, the Washington District of Columbia, and the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri.

Achievements

• In 1985 Norman Akers took first place at the Southwestern Association for Indian Art. And he also took first place at the Scottsdale Indian Arts and Crafts Exhibition in 1987.

Works

More photos

• painting

  • Contested Territories

  • Collision of Heavenly Structures

    2003

  • Opossum Crossing

    1995

  • Interference and a Tiny Spot of Hope

    2019

  • Distant Calling II

  • Red Elk Calling

  • Roots

  • Transience

    2010

  • Phoenix

  • Internalized Stories

    2018

  • Rebirth 2000

    2000

  • Calling Bird

  • Ghost Matrix

  • Blue Matrix

  • Elk Transition

  • Alien Conquest

  • The Gathering

  • Red Hands

    2014

  • Occupation

    2012

  • Shadows of Old Money

    2011

  • Okesa II

    2010

  • Border Crossing II

  • Uneasy Welcom

    2014

  • Transience

  • Prairie Transience

    2006

  • Framed by History

  • Apparition

  • Dark Reign

  • New Forest

  • Retribution

  • New Arrival

    2008

Views

The landscape has been a central theme of Norman Akers' creative research. His use of visual images to express tribal, political, and historical issues support indigenous perspectives on a place.

Norman Akers: "My art actively seeks to engage people in examining important issues. I address the topics of personal and cultural survival. Instead of speaking out words, I pursue a visual dialog. Through color, line, and visual form, I express deeply felt concerns regarding removal, disturbance, and the struggle to reclaim cultural context."

Membership

• 

  Norman Akers is a member of the Osage Nation.

  The Osage Nation , United States

Interests

• The history of Native Americans