ARTIST BIO

Ramona Faith Medicine Crow is a member of the Crow Nation. She was both born and raised on the reservation, where she graduated from High School and attended Little Big Horn Junior College. She is fluent in both Crow and English.

Ramona first began drawing at the age of two years old and never stopped to do anything else. She believes it was her childhood, teenage and adult life that has influenced her artwork as well as talents inherited from her family who are also artists. Both her brother and sister are visual artists, bead workers, leather workers, sculptures, photographers, prominent traditional story tellers, tribal historians, and published authors. It is her grandfather, Joseph Medicine Crow, revered tribal elder, who continues to be a major inspiration for Ramona. Born in Nov, 1969 in Crow Agency Montana.

Ramona moved to New York to attend Parsons School of Design, where she graduated in 2000 with a BFA in Illustration, emphasizing “Conceptual Problem-Solving Using Art.” She learned through assignments which included CD/album covers, book and magazine covers, story boarding, and commercial design for corporate companies, through assignments for various theoretical companies. She found education rewarding and intensive experience learning from instructors, who were successful artists by their own right. .

ARTIST'S STATEMENT:

"I was going through an artistic block for some time around 2000 to 2002 and I started journaling and experimenting in poetry first, then eventually stories at the encouragement of friends and fellow writers. I had an artistic and spiritual reawakening and resurgence, an epiphany. I started writing and painting like mad. Through my writings my initial beliefs were reinforced as to why I even came out to New York City for school. I needed to be away from home to fully appreciate home, family, and culture. My writings have made me understand myself better and to finally heal from a painful past. Not only that but also to allow my art, whether it be artwork or writing, to heal, inspire, and encourage me and to meet all my aspirations as an artist in every sense of the word. "

"I work in water color, oil, acrylic, gouache, pen & inks, charcoal, pencil/graphite, pastels, conté. My primary technique is to mix different mediums to get the desired effect. I use some of this for reference as well as inspiration for my artwork. I have done some portraiture work and headshots."

Ramona is currently working on a series of paintings on sexual abuse/brutalization, pedophilia and homoerotic art. Ms. Medicine Crow would like to own her own gallery one day. She will always be deeply committed to the struggle for Native American rights and dedicate part of her life to supporting gay youth especially gay youth of color.

"I can only hope one day to give as much as my grandfather has done for our people… I will do my best."

Book Jacket Illustration: "White Man Runs Him" 36 x 48, watercolor and colored pencil. Harcey, Dennis W., Brian R. Croone with Joe Medicine Crow, White-Man-Runs-Him: Crow Scout with Custer, Evanston, Illinois: Evanston Publishing, 1993. ISBN: 1879260360

Exhibition: 1990 - "White Man Runs Him", 28 x 36, painting/watercolor, Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Plains Indian Museum, Cody WY

Teaching and Training: Introduction to Drawing-1996 Adjunct Faculty-Little Big Horn Junior College, Crow Agency, MT