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Wat’sa with a Pearl Earring

This image was shown in the artist’s solo exhibition at the Frye Art Museum in Seattle in 2017.

‘Wat’sa with a Pearl Earring examines the exclusion of Northwest Coast art from the canon of “great art” in mainstream art history. It also speaks to the male gaze present in many famous paintings of women.
‘Wat’sa is Sm’algyax for land otter. Land otters would take the form of a beautiful woman and appear to unsuspecting men to steal them away.