Jude Norris / Bebonkwe ᐱᐳᐣ (Winter) is a multimedia Plains Cree/Metis Nation artist from Edmonton, Alberta, now based in Brooklyn, New York. She has also made camp at various locations in Canada, the UK throughout her career, including Toronto, the Lower Similkameen Reservation (BC), Brighton (UK) and London (UK).
In addition to her formal training at prestigious art schools in the UK & Canada, Bebonkwe has apprenticed with a number of traditional First Nations artists & craftspeople. She has also been the ‘eskapew’ (helper/student) of two Plains Cree Medicine People.
Bebonkwe’s work contains an inherent exploration and expression of living as a First Nations woman in contemporary Western-dominant environments, and the multilayered navigation of two inherently dispirit cultures. Her work centers the fundamentality of relationships – to the earth, plant & animal relatives, culture, technology, each other, self, and the spirit world.
Bebonkwe is known for taking materials, language, creative practices and iconography associated with traditional Native American culture and incorporating them with Western ones, such as technology, art genres, and the English language. She employs a sophisticated and often groundbreaking visual and social sensibility and craftspersonship in creating unique combinations and juxtapositions of these elements.
She combines sensual forms, an intuitive and symphonic use of colour, and a deep understanding of the physical and metaphoric properties of her materials and subject matter. She employs all these elements in a way that creates visual intrigue and cultural introspection and celebration.
The result is images, objects, digital and/or or real-time artworks that are visually and metaphorically dynamic, intellectually engaging and potentially educational. The ‘cultural remixes’ in her pieces often break down pre-conceived notions of what being Native American is and means. At the same time they embrace and promote the beauty and value inherent in Indigenous societies and paradigms.
In Western terms, Bebonkwe’s work is highly contemporary. Yet underlying all of it is a spiritual foundation, awareness and focus based on her Indigenous cultural teachings and understandings. The expression and energy of this perspective permeates all her artwork’s other attributes. Her work is infused with a serene and yet dramatic energy, and she understands her arts practice to be at core a spiritual one.
A strong connection with the non-physical, ‘beyond-time’, spirit-inhabited world is inherent to Native culture. In keeping with this, Jude’s creative process is intuition-based, and she considers her work to be a direct result of her relationship with these realms.
Though she works in a variety of organic and digital media, the underlying medium and alchemy Bebonkwe’s creative practice is energy. Her work always involves some combination of connecting to, channeling, identifying, shape-shifting and sharing energy. She creates ‘informed by Spirit’.
Whether she is using deer hide or digital technology, Jude continues an Indigenous legacy. Through a dedicated and honed practice, she incorporates the physical and ethereal into the creation of artworks imbued with ‘Good Medicine’. Her art speaks in a powerful visual and spiritual language that is distinctly Indigenous, yet has the potential for deep universal relevance and impact.
If you would like to see more of Bebonkwe’s work, check out these sites and pages:
www.JudeNorris.com (sculpture, video, installation, live art)
www.Winter-Brown.com (painting, sculpture)
the braided series (includes ‘rubber braid’)
aniskomiw series (includes ‘The Response-Hive City’)
follow her on instagram @bebonkwe and @kihiw_mitahtahkwan_awasis
and on facebook at Jude Norris/Bebonkwe/Winter Brown Contemporary Native American Artwork
