Don Bailey, born in 1954, is a Hupa tribal member raised on the Hoopa Valley Reservation of California. A graduate of Western Oregon University and the University of Oregon, he taught art for 40 years at Chemawa Indian School, the oldest continually operating federal boarding school for Native students in America. From that vantage point, Bailey has witnessed the ways bureaucracy imposes itself upon native communities but also the ways irony and humor can be empowering in the face of that stranglehold.

The Level 2 Gallery show features Bailey’s America Replated works, a series of eight paintings, each beginning with an archival (late 19th century/early 20th century) black and white photograph of Native Americans. These photographs, taken by non-Native photographers, were presented to the public as “documents of a vanishing race.”  Says Bailey, “I have re-contextualized the often static, sometimes staged portraits with layers of color, traditional native design and landscapes real and imagined.  I aim to give the portraits of our ancestors a timelessness and, in the spirit of whil-xolik (story-telling), invite the viewers of my work to consider the lives of people who have never vanished.”

In the Art Hall at the Salem Public Library, Bailey shows, Whil-xolik (Tell Me a Story), a series of six paintings, where each portrait and narrative work includes a juxtaposition of images.  “In each painting, you might see images from 19th and early 20th century photographs of Native Americans, references to the work of other artists, buildings and landscapes I’ve known and imagined, and objects familiar and strange.” 

Bailey’s work has been featured on OPB Art Beat, in the Sasse Museum of Art (Pomona, CA) publication Native American Artists, and on the Portland Streetcar.  His work is in the collection of the Hallie Ford Museum of Art (Salem, Oregon), the State Library of Oregon (Salem, Oregon), the Mayor’s Office (Portland, Oregon), RB Ravens Gallery (Ranchos de Taos, NM), University of New Mexico (Albuquerque, NM), and private collections. He is a member of Blackfish Gallery, an artist-owned and operated gallery in Portland, and works out of his studio in Portland.

The America Replated and Tell Me A Story are supported by City of Salem Transient Occupancy Grant funds and a Small Arts and Culture Grant from the Oregon Arts Commission.