{"id":24256,"date":"2025-08-13T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/customwordpresssites.com\/mjb\/?p=24256"},"modified":"2026-02-09T08:29:05","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T14:29:05","slug":"kent-monkman-telling-the-truth-through-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/customwordpresssites.com\/mjb\/2025\/08\/13\/kent-monkman-telling-the-truth-through-art\/","title":{"rendered":"Kent Monkman: Telling the truth through art\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In the gospels, Jesus tells us to go into the world and spread the good news. This desire to convert non-Christians was distorted by popes and many Catholics in the 15th and 16th-centuries. The doctrine of discovery, papal bulls that legitimized colonization, were written with lots of religious justification. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In June, I went to an exhibit at the Denver Art Museum featuring 41 paintings by Cree artist Kent Monkman called History is Painted by the Victors<\/em><\/a>. The paintings are stunning\u2014colorful, detailed, action-filled, dramatic paintings telling stories of colonization, using the imagery of European-style paintings, reclaiming the narrative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though many of the paintings depict the horrors and violence of colonization by white settlers, Monkman\u2019s commitment to justice and love seeps from the works. Monkman\u2019s skill as a painter is incredible\u2014the level of detail, human expression, drama, light, and color made me want to look at each painting for hours. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When European settlers came to the American West, they painted the landscapes they saw in mystical, sweeping representations\u2014an overexaggeration that touched on fantasy. Albert Bierstadt\u2019s paintings from the 1800s evoke towering fortresses of mountains that look like they came from a Disney movie. They are breathtaking, unblemished lands, heaven erupting out of the skies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
“In the Mountains” by Albert Bierstadt, image by Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

These works, though beautiful, mythologized the West and fostered the idea that these were empty lands open to European settlers. Monkman does a fantastic job at flipping this on its head\u2014he recreates Bierstadt\u2019s landscapes but includes Indigenous people and white settlers inhabiting them, creating \u201cdialogues between different kinds of work across periods of time,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

White artists in the 19th-century also painted Indigenous people who they encountered in North America. George Catlin, for example, painted portraits, such as \u201cThe White Cloud, Head Chief of the Iowas<\/a>.\u201d Monkman takes Catlin\u2019s paintings\u2014the people and dramatic scenes depicted in them\u2014and reimagines them.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a central recurring character in many of the paintings in the exhibit: Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, Monkman\u2019s gender-fluid alter ego. She is muscular and wears black stiletto heels, traveling through time in the paintings, defending and rescuing her people from the violence of white settlers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his painting \u201cThe Scream,\u201d white priests, nuns, and military officers kidnap Indigenous children. The children are wearing blue jeans and t-shirts. Some run away, others scream with their mothers clutching their limbs. The house in the background could be found in any neighborhood today, reminding us that this generational trauma continues to impact people and was not so long ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Right now, Oak Flat, a sacred Apache site in Arizona, is urgently at risk of being destroyed due to the public lands being transferred to a copper mine (as Mary Bishop recently wrote about in Messy Jesus Business<\/a>). Catholic sisters, like Kristin Peters, have shown solidarity with Indigenous people in joining the Apache in prayer and protest.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many Catholic sisters have responded to the cry of the earth and of their Indigenous neighbors by engaging in land justice movements, returning or sharing their lands with Indigenous people. Though as Catholics we are inheritors of the violent traditions of the doctrine of discovery, boarding schools, and colonization, these women religious communities are showing what it might look like to leave a different legacy, to be \u201ccomplicit no more,\u201d as many of the sisters\u2019 signs at Oak Flat said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“Sunday in the Park” by Kent Monkman. Photo by Cassidy Klein.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In a small but powerful way, they are embodying the good news of the gospel, which is one of life\u2014\u201cI came that they may have life and have it abundantly,\u201d Jesus says (John 10:10). For justice and life to flourish, reparations are needed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2023, Pope Francis and the Vatican repudiated the doctrine of discovery. Never again, Francis said, \u201ccan the Christian community allow itself to be infected by the idea that one culture is superior to others, or that it is legitimate to employ ways of coercing others.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The gospel good news rejects hatred, violence, coercion, and superiority. It even rejects the idea of being a victor. Christ tells us to be peacemakers, and for our lives to bring God glory\u2014lives of justice, simplicity, sacrifice, and love of neighbor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Monkman\u2019s \u201cThe Sparrow,\u201d an Indigenous child, with their hair cut short, stands on tip-toe in their residential school bedroom, trying to touch a bird on the open windowsill. The light is bright and blue and quiet. The painting is imbued with sorrow and rage and grief and loss and pain\u2014they are living in a kind of prison\u2014but a tiny birdsong of hope and truth remains with the children, that which the white settlers and empire can\u2019t take away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe the good news Christ calls us to today is to practice living a love that says no more death and no more greed. A love that uplifts the oppressed, a love that tells the truth, a love that urges us to work toward a world where all people are set free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

History is Painted by the Victors<\/em> is on display at the Denver Art Museum through August 17. Art has the power to change narratives and help educate. How can we use our gifts, like Monkman did, to further fight for and advocate for life and truth? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more by this author<\/a> or more about faith in art<\/a> at our website<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ABOUT THE AUTHOR<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Messy<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Cassidy Klein<\/strong> is a journalist, writer, and editor based in Chicago. She has worked as an editorial assistant at Sojourners magazine and U.S. Catholic magazine. She grew up in Denver, Colorado and studied journalism and philosophy at PLNU in San Diego. Find more of her work at cassidyrklein.weebly.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the gospels, Jesus tells us to go into the world and spread the good news. This desire to convert non-Christians was distorted by popes and many Catholics in the 15th and 16th-centuries. The doctrine of discovery, papal bulls that legitimized colonization, were written with lots of religious justification.  In June, I went to an...","protected":false},"author":149585910,"featured_media":24260,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","episode_type":"audio","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6469729],"tags":[698756909,177,698756910,698756908,698756907,698756906,698756900,698756898,154615063,698756004,698756911,106],"series":[698756626],"class_list":["post-24256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-and-activism","tag-albert-bierstadt","tag-art","tag-boarding-schools","tag-colonization","tag-doctrine-of-discovery","tag-kent-monkman","tag-land-justice","tag-oak-flat","tag-pope-francis","tag-reparations","tag-residential-schools","tag-truth","series-messy-jesus-business"],"acf":[],"episode_featured_image":"https:\/\/customwordpresssites.com\/mjb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/cassidy-Resurgence-of-the-People-scaled.jpeg","episode_player_image":"https:\/\/customwordpresssites.com\/mjb\/wp-content\/plugins\/seriously-simple-podcasting\/assets\/images\/no-album-art.png","download_link":"","player_link":"","audio_player":false,"episode_data":{"playerMode":"dark","subscribeUrls":{"apple_podcasts":{"key":"apple_podcasts","url":"","label":"Apple Podcasts","class":"apple_podcasts","icon":"apple-podcasts.png"},"stitcher":{"key":"stitcher","url":"","label":"Stitcher","class":"stitcher","icon":"stitcher.png"},"google_podcasts":{"key":"google_podcasts","url":"","label":"Google Podcasts","class":"google_podcasts","icon":"google-podcasts.png"},"spotify":{"key":"spotify","url":"","label":"Spotify","class":"spotify","icon":"spotify.png"}},"rssFeedUrl":"https:\/\/customwordpresssites.com\/mjb\/feed\/podcast\/messy-jesus-business","embedCode":"

Kent Monkman: Telling the truth through art\u00a0<\/a><\/blockquote>