Next month, an unprecedented survey of contemporary Native American art curated by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, citizen of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation, opens at the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University-New Brunswick.
Featured in the exhibit, Indigenous Identities: Here, Now & Always, will be Osage artist Norman Akers, an associate professor of visual art at the University of Kansas and chairman of the Osage Nation’s Traditional Cultural Advisory board.
Akers was born and raised in Fairfax, Okla., and received a BFA in Painting from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1982, and a Certificate in Museum Studies from the Institute of American Indian Arts in 1983. In 1991, he received an MFA in Fine Arts from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Indigenous Identities comprises over 100 works across various media, from beadwork and jewelry to video and painting. The exhibit features the diverse practices of 97 artists, representing more than 50 distinct Indigenous nations and tribes across the United States. The exhibit will be available for the entire calendar year from February 1 to December 21, 2025.
In curating Indigenous Identities, Smith invited artists to help select the work representing them in the exhibition.
Akers oil painting, Drowning Elk, depicts an elk drowning in water surrounded by plastic water bottles and pollution. The painting is on loan from the Gochman Family Collection.