Natani Notah
Natani Notah is an interdisciplinary artist and a proud member of the Navajo Nation. Notah has exhibited her work nationwide and has received awards from Art Matters, International Sculpture Center, and the San Francisco Foundation. Her work has appeared in Artforum, Art in America, Hyperallergic, Forbes, and Sculpture Magazine and she has completed artist residencies at the Studios at MASS MoCA, Vermont Studio Center, Headlands Center for the Arts, and Kala Art Institute. Notah holds a BFA with a minor in Feminist, Gender, & Sexuality Studies from Cornell University and an MFA from Stanford University.
During her fellowship at Kala Notah worked on a series titled, The Emancipation of Mia, which consisted of intimate works on paper and sculptural assemblages that responded to the 2020 disappearance of Mia the Indian butter maiden who was at the center of the Land O’Lakes butter logo for nearly 100 years. Through the deconstruction and abstraction of her likeness, this work explored Mia’s removal and her controversial legacy. In turn raising questions for both the artist and viewer, such as where did Mia go? And what will she do in her post-retirement?