Artificial wildlife

No, the C.N. Gorman Museum will not be open during traditional Second Saturday hours. But it looks like the exhibiting artist Wendy Red Star went out of her way to photograph herself in the middle of life-size dioramas brimming full of artificial wildlife, so let us go a little out of our way to pay respect to her work.

The Gorman Museum on the UC Davis campus is a venue for Native American artists, and Red Star, who is half Crow, grew up on a reservation. Her photography is a take on the modern Native American experience, and also its history, but in Rainbow Brite saturation and often humorous ways. The Four Seasons series, for example, are vivid, idyllic scenes of Red Star dressed in traditional Native American-style attire, seated in the midst of each season. But then, the viewer sees the seams in the beautiful mountain backdrop, the scrubbing-sponge inhospitality of the AstroTurf, and the two-dimensionality of the delicate doe with the dappled rump. It's life. And it's apparent: We've created this environment for ourselves.

Stop by Davis before the Second Saturday art walk begins in Sacramento to view Red Star's work—the museum is open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. as part of the university's Picnic Day—or make sure to attend the reception on Wednesday, April 16, where Red Star will be on hand to give a talk. Maybe even with a cardboard cutout of a deer.