Full Name Hock E Aye VI Movies In Our Language Role Artist | Name Edgar of | |
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Nationality Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes Education Haskell Indian Nations University, Wichita East High School, University of Kansas, Tyler School of Art Known for Painting, Drawing, Printmaking, Sculpture, Installation art, Conceptual art | ||
Notable work In Our Language, Wheel | ||
Edgar Heap of Birds Artist Talk
Edgar Heap of Birds (Cheyenne name: Hock E Aye VI) is a multi-disciplinary artist. His art contributions include public art messages, large scale drawings, Neuf Series acrylic paintings, prints, and monumental porcelain enamel on steel outdoor sculpture.
Contents
- Edgar Heap of Birds Artist Talk
- Edgar heap of birds
- Early life and education
- Professional career
- Awards
- Books
- References
He is Southern Cheyenne and enrolled in the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes.
Edgar heap of birds
Early life and education
Hachivi Edgar Heap of Birds was born on November 22, 1954 in Wichita, Kansas, where his father worked in the aeronautical industry. He attended East High School in Wichita and graduated in 1972. After graduation, Heap of Birds studied at Haskell Indian School in Lawrence, Kansas.
In 1976 Heap of Birds earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts from University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas and in 1979 he received his Master of Fine Arts from Temple University's Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In between his undergraduate and graduate studies, Heap of Birds also classes at the Royal College of Art in London, England from 1976-1977.
In 2008, Heap of Birds was awarded an Honorary Doctors of Fine Arts from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston, Massachusetts.
Professional career
Heap of Birds has taught as Visiting Professor at Yale University, Rhode Island School of Design, and Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town, South Africa. At the University of Oklahoma, Heap of Birds teaches in Native American Studies and previously taught Fine Arts.
He is known for text-based conceptual art, such as Dead Indian Stories in the Honolulu Museum of Art. It superficially resembles public signage, but is actually commentary on the Native American experience. An example of his site-specific public signage projects is Building Minnesota (1990), a signage installation mounted on the banks of the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota and commissioned by the Walker Art Center. In it, Heap of Birds set forty large, metal, billboard-like signs along Minneapolis's downtown riverfront. The signs honored the forty Dakota men who were sentenced to death by Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Jackson after the US-Dakota Conflict of 1862, in what is the largest mass execution in American history.
Recently Heap of Birds created a fifty-foot signature, outdoor sculpture titled: "Wheel," as a signature entrance piece for the Gio Ponti (North) building of the Denver Art Museum. The circular porcelain enamel on steel work was commissioned by The Denver Art Museum and is inspired by the traditional Medicine Wheel of the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming.
Awards
Heap of Birds has received grants and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, The Wallace Foundation, the Bonfil Stanton Foundation, and The Pew Charitable Trusts.
In 2012, Heap of Birds was named a Fellow of United States Artists.