Nadema Agard

Nadema Ivania Agard (born September 10, 1948) is an American visual artist, educator, illustrator, poet, storyteller, museum professional and an activist for Indigenous rights. Agard also works as a repatriation and multicultural/Native American arts and cultures consultant. Additionally, Agard owns and directs an art production and consulting enterprise, Red Earth Studio.
Agard's art is primarily mixed media visual arts, ranging from canvas paintings, sketches, and published works and her intent is to show the relations of femininity and masculinity in various mixed medias. Her goal is also to represent the merging of cultures races, religions, and traditions together, as well as to serve as a form of visual worship.
Early and personal life.
Agard was born and raised in New York, where she has lived most of her life. She has stated that her mother was Eastern Cherokee and her father was Lakota and Powhatan. Agard was exposed to art at a very young age, as her father was a portrait artist and muralist. She has credited this constant exposure to art as an early inspiration for her choice to create art herself. Agard grew up in New York, where she has family.
In the early 2000s, Agard was diagnosed with breast cancer but she later beat it. She had to take a step back from making art until creating "Moon Breast Mother."
She currently lives in her hometown of New York.
Education.
In June 1970, Agard earned a bachelor of science degree in art education from New York University. Three years later, she continued her education in New York and completed a master's program, earning a master of art degree in art in education at Columbia University, Teacher’s College in December 1973. Between the years living in New York and pursuing higher education, Agard spent two summers studying in Europe. At the Università Cattolica di Milano of Rome, Italy, in Summer 1969, Agard studied Renaissance art and Architecture. And in Greece at the Aegina Arts Centre, she studied fine arts through Summer 1972.
After earning her first degree in art and education, Agard began to teach art in the New York City Public School system for 15 years on and off. In 1981, she left teaching to run the Native arts program, "So the Spirit Flows" at the Museum of the American Indian until 1988 when she received a NEA Fellowship to eventually publish her "Southeastern Native Arts Directory" at Bemidji State University in Minnesota where she was an adjunct professor of studio arts and art education. From 1995 to 1997 she became the Repatriation Director for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and in the early 2000s, she accepted the position of Community Outreach Specialist for the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. After leaving the museum, Agard has taken several roles as a guest curator, and has used her time to give lectures and create artwork. She continued to serve as a lecturer for the New York Council for the Humanities for many years. She continued to give lectures and curate at various universities and museums locally and nationally.
Artworks.
"Our Lady of Guadalakota".
"Our Lady of Guadalakota" is a sepia pencil drawing by Agard created in 1997 that symbolizes the fusion of the Mesoamerica goddess Tonantzin, also seen as the Virgin of Guadalupe, with the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Maiden of her Lakota people.
"Moon Breast Mother: An Installation".
"Moon Breast Mother: An Installation" is a mixed-media soft sculpture that includes acrylic paint on a canvas. It consists of ten pieces and each square is 12 by 12 inches.
Agard created the work in 2003 after she overcame breast cancer. She created each of the moons to be a soft sculpture that reflects a woman’s body in many phases and per Patricia Janis Broder, shows the ongoing theme of her art that highlights female genitalia in a more open perspective. After showing this piece in a solo exhibition in 2003, Agard now keeps the ten-piece installation in her home in New York.
"Wampum Moons of Change".
Wampum Moons of Change is a 12-piece installation, with a similar format to her piece “Moon Breast Mother”. It was created in 2009 for the Staten Island Museum collection, “CONTACT 1609”. This is also a soft sculpture mixed media piece on a canvas with acrylic paint. Each piece of this installation is a 12”x12” square, each with a different symbol that represents both Native American and Dutch cultures. Purple and creme paints are displayed through each square, each containing images including shells, corn, various animals, and even writing that says “half moon”. None of the twelve images repeat, and hanging below the twelve-piece installation is a sweat grass braid with purple ribbon.
Exhibitions.
Nadema Agard has had her work in various solo and group exhibitions since 1979. The majority of her work was found in group exhibitions in New York, Minnesota, Arizona and nationwide.