Andrea Carlson

Carlson earned a BA from the University of Minnesota in 2003 and an MFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 2005.[2]

Carlson draws from her Anishinaabe (specifically, Ojibwe) and Scandinavian heritage as a basis for her highly stylized work.[3] She was influenced by Ojibwe artist George Morrison.[4]

Carlson also explores the role of the museum in the representation and interpretation of cultural objects. She has said that "By citing pieces from the museum's collection in my artwork, I appropriate those objects by drawing them into imagined landscapes. The museum is a landscape in its own right, fostering and assimilating objects foreign to itself."[5] Carlson's work and writing challenges museums to evolve beyond long-standing Western institutional paradigms, and to grapple with their colonial past.[6] Carlson has employed cannibalism as a metaphor for cultural consumption in her paintings' titles and imagery, naming her "Windigo" series for an Anishinaabe winter cannibal that often misidentifies those it consumes.[5]

• 2018-2019: Art for a New Understanding: Native Voices, 1950s to Now, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR[7]
• 2019-2020 - Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists, traveling exhibition, June 2 - August 18, 2019 at Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN; September 27, 2019 - January 12, 2020 at Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN; February 21 - May 17, 2020 at Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; June 27 - September 13, 2020 at Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK.[8]
• 2020-2021: Don't Let This Be Easy at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN, -July 30, 2020-July 4, 2021[9]

Her work is included in the permanent collections of the Walker Art Center, Weisman Art Museum, the British Museum, and the National Gallery of Canada. [10][11]