Ka'ila Farrell-Smith

Ka’ila is a contemporary Klamath Modoc artist whose practice is directly informed by her ancestral homelands in Southern Oregon. The framework of her practice focuses on channeling cultural, political, and historical research through a creative flow of experimentation and artistic playfulness rooted in Indigenous aesthetics and abstract formalism. The root of her current research is about familial lineage and connection to land. This has required genealogical research and tribal research tracking land sales/theft and legacies of Settler-Colonialism in Oregon. Her studio practice explores space in-between the Indigenous and western paradigms and fields of knowledge. This research is a part of the studio practice and the visual artwork is a performative act of dictation. She utilizes white paint as a form of redaction and erasure, reclaiming colonizer’s attempts to erase Indigenous power and control. The use of white functions as a reflection of the oppressive white supremacist culture, as well as the sublime.