Look at Them Look at Us
Look at Them Look at Us
- Creator: Jared Andreas
- Date: 2018
- Location: Boise City Hall, 1st Floor, Arts & History Department, Work Room, Unit F, Shelf/Drawer 2, Box/Slot 1
- Types: paintings (visual works)
- Materials: acrylic paint, oil paint (pigmented coating), canvas
- Collection: Portable Works
Exacerbated by popular culture’s misrepresentation of Native Americans, Jared Andreas developed a “neither this, nor that” complex as a child about his mixed heritage and enrollment in a federally recognized tribe. There are over 500 diverse tribes in the United States, each one unique. However, since the early 20th century, Native American identity has been pigeon-holed into a homogenized caricature. Trompe-l’oiel, French for ‘deceive the eye’, is a painting technique that is often used to create an illusion of three-dimensional objects onto two-dimensional surfaces. Andreas's usage of the technique and term within his paintings is not meant to necessarily trick the viewer with what they are seeing but instead to confront the stereotypes that continue to deceive our society today. It was through these paintings, made during his junior and senior year at Boise State University, that Andreas attempted to examine the constructed reality of misrepresentation and the psychological consequences.
