For her PLATFORM commission, Andrea Carlson (Ojibwe, lives and works in Illinois and Minnesota) is creating Out Last, a new painting reproduced at an oversized scale and installed outdoors in the Sculpture Park. Through painting and drawing, Carlson’s practice often references objects within un-enterable landscapes. Museum collections, histories of landscape painting and decolonial views of the land are ever present in Carlson’s work. She overlays landscape painting traditions with boldly patterned depictions of figures and designs that harken back to graphic novels or film poster design. Out Last takes inspiration from Firsting and Lasting: Writing Indians Out of Existence in New England, a book by historian Jean M. O’Brien (Anishinaabe) that reveals how the “vanishing Indian” myth was perpetuated in countless texts by amateur historians that were absorbed within town archives as official history and which are continually accepted to

About Andrea Carlson

Andrea Carlson earned her BA in studio art and American Indian studies from the University of Minnesota (2003), and her MFA in Visual Studies from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (2005). Her art is in numerous museum collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, Walker Art Center, and National Gallery of Canada. Major group exhibitions include Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists, 2019-21, which traveled to multiple venues including Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, and Art for a New Understanding: Native Voices, 1950s to Now, Crystal Bridges Museum of Art, Bentonville, AK, 2019-20.

About PLATFORM

PLATFORMS are one-person commissioned projects by early- and mid-career artists from New England, national, and international art communities that engage with deCordova’s unique landscape. The PLATFORM series lets artists expand their practice and visitors experience new approaches to contemporary sculpture and public art.

Main Image: Andrea Carlson, Exit, 2018. Screenprint, Highpoint Editions. © Andrea Carlson