RobertGopher

Robert Gopher (Chippewa Cree) works in mixed media, and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Montana State University in Billings, Montana (1989). He lives and works on the Rocky Boy Reservation in Montana.

In his three-dimensional mixed media work, The Scream, Robert Gopher explores the contemporary negative effects of the invasion of America by foreigners. Robert Gopher expresses the historical patterns of destruction by creating a bird's nest made of wooden sticks into which he places a human head. This man's mouth is open, full of pills, beer bottle caps, beads, and bullet casings; he is being force fed the things that will destroy him. His nostrils are coated with white powder. There is an animated desperation in his face, open as it is to forces of destruction. This nest is staked above a pedestal on which there are three bottles. One holds pure spring water, clean like the water when Lewis and Clark arrived, another is polluted with oil to represent the destruction of environment, and the third bottle is full of beer to reflect on the introduction of addictive substances into American Indian communities. In creating this work, Robert Gopher realizes that one of the first requirements for healing is to recognize a problem, so he creates an image that will reveal that problem in ways that do not glamorize it or make it seem positive. He finds a way to represent a problem whose historical context does not result from cultural tradition or belief. The viewer looks at this image and knows that no role model is represented here.

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