Raised on the Apsáalooke (Crow) reservation in Montana, Red Star’s work is informed both by her cultural heritage and her engagement with many forms of creative expression, including photography, sculpture, video, fiber arts, and performance. In Accession Red Star presents a new series of prints based on hand painted Native American object catalog cards at the Denver Art Museum.

Using the objects depicted on the cards as points of reference, she took snapshots of similar Crow material worn during the Apsáalooke Nation’s annual parades. She identified individual parade goers and paired them with the most appropriate item cataloged on the cards, isolating intimate moments in the photographs and removing the backgrounds.

The resulting series is a vibrant meeting of past and present, honoring the artistry of the original makers who crafted the objects as well as the anonymous artists who catalogued them, and bringing back to life pieces that had remained sequestered under museum glass.