Emerging Alaska Native artists: featuring contemporary artwork and business models.

• Author: Anjum, Shehla
• Position: SPECIAL SECTION: Alaska Native Business

Do not confuse Alaska Native art with cheap, imitation "Native art" made overseas and sold in gift shops catering to tourists. Today's contemporary Alaska Native artists create original and stunning art, equal in creativity to anything found in art centers such as New York or London. Some of these original works sell in the thousands of dollars, but artists also make affordable, original art. Their works retain many traditional elements in a contemporary style, both fresh and inventive.

The art often goes beyond beauty or startling imagery to include thought-provoking elements. This is also art with a purpose: To draw attention to many problems--alcoholism, diabetes, fetal alcohol syndrome--that confront Alaska Natives.

Four such emerging Alaska Native artists are Jerrod Galanin, Tlingit/Unangan from Sitka; Holly Nordlum, Inupiat from Kotzebue; Elizabeth Ellis, Alutiiq, from Anchorage; and Ryan Romer, Yup'ik/Athabascan from Bethel.

Their works are collected by museums and private individuals and are available in galleries in Anchorage, Juneau, and Sitka. In a sign of changing times, most of them also market their works through websites and use social media, such as Facebook and Instagram, to promote new work or upcoming shows. Three of the artists profiled, Nordlum, Ellis, and Romer, also belong to "Diaspora," a group of contemporary Alaska Native artists.

Jerrod Galanin

Jerrod Galanin's talents are rooted in an artistic family, which includes his father David, brother Nicholas, uncle William Burkhart, and great-grandfather George Benson, a well-known carver of totem poles. In 2014, the three Galanins--the two brothers and their father--each received an artist award from the Rasmuson Foundation.

Most of Galanin's work is making jewelry in copper, silver, or gold; but he also collaborates with his brother Nicholas on installations and conceptual art.

Last year, the Frye Art Museum in Seattle displayed "Modicum," their controversial piece about the deaths of minority victims by law enforcement officers. In the installation a mannequin in black riot gear, crouched underneath an array of disposable coffee cups that dripped red paint. The name of a minority victim was inscribed on each cup.

The work made many viewers uneasy, Galanin says, but also fostered discussion about the reasoning and issues behind it. The Frye Museum is considering purchasing the piece for its permanent collection, he says.

"I was born to be an artist," says Galanin, who received no formal training. "I learned from mentors, who are my family--my dad, my uncle Will...