Biography of:
Sarah Sense
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Sarah Sense (Chitimacha/Choctaw) was born and raised in Northern California. She is a woman of European and American Indian decent, including German, English and Cajun French.
Growing up in a suburb of Sacramento, her most memorable cultural examples of her ancestry are the Native American objects that decorated her childhood home, and dressing up in cowgirl and Indian costumes.
Says Sense, "for decades American popular culture has resurrected the dying American Indian through Hollywood cinema, fashion trends and pop icons. I was raised in California with a strong influence of Hollywood idealism. Cowboy and Indian iconography are deeply rooted in America without recognition of the real history or the consequences of stereotypes. These sweeping generalizations are detrimental to the collective community and to the individual. Mainstream interpretations of what it means to be American Indian are misleading to the masses, which includes contemporary American Indian communities. The objectification affects the individual by leading one to doubt their inherited identity. I am a woman of complex ethnic background. Popular culture has given me false ideas of ethnicity and what it means to be a female. My art explores questions of identity, and the influence that heritage, gender roles, ideologies, family values and the crossing over of cultural and personal experiences has had on my development and understanding of self. These works are an exploration of the conflicts between tradition and assimilation affecting Contemporary American Indians within the broader American culture.
I digitally manipulate photographs of my nation's reservation, Hollywood imagery, mass produced Indian posters and of myself acting out cultural stereotypes of my heritage. Each print is then deconstructed and woven together into traditional Chitimacha basket patterns. The old forms of articulation with new forms of iconography create a collision, echoing the cultural experience in my life."
Sense received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Fine Art from California State University Chico, in Chico, California, and a Master of Fine Arts in Fine Art from Parsons School of Design, in New York City. Upon graduation from Parsons School of Design, Sense became the director and curator of the American Indian Community House Gallery, a non-profit in New York City, which exhibits contemporary American Indian art. While there she worked with many contemporary Native artists whose artwork she finds inspirational and informative to her own art.
Currently, Sense is a practicing artist, living and working in Northern California.
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