Julie Buffalohead: Coyote Dreams
Opening: Wild critters, characters from myth and legend, and humans large and small populate Buffalohead's poignant and often unsettling landscapes of the mind. The Big Bad Wolf moves in on a tea party whose guests include an owl, a raccoon and a fawn that cowers under the table. Humans don masks, coyotes flaunt aprons, and a whole panoply of figures from childhood nightmares and fantasies run through these imaginative paintings, drawings and prints. Her pictorial narratives are free-form mashups of Euro-American children's tales and vignettes from her life as an artist, mother and enrolled member of Oklahoma's Ponca Tribe. A very busy woman, Buffalohead recently had a show at Bockley Gallery and completed a new series of prints at Highpoint Center for Printmaking, both in Minneapolis. Featuring about 25 images, this midcareer retrospective is her first major museum show. (10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sat.-Sun., 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Thu. Free. Closed Dec. 25 and Jan. 1. Minnesota Museum of American Art Project Space, Pioneer Endicott building, 141 E. 4th St., St. Paul. Ends Feb. 22. Free. www.mmaa.org)
