Donna R. Charging approaches her paintings, drawings, and prints with the understanding that “America” is a makeshift construct. She continually works to expose the depths of Native absence and presence throughout her art production; the spare, mysterious quality of her work magnifies the weight of implicit desire and cultural voyeurism inherent in this dynamic.
Donna R. Charging is an enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes (Mandan/Hidatsa/Arikara). Her mother is Eastern Shoshone. She grew up on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming. In 2022, Donna was awarded the SSG & AC Edwards Fellowship at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA), and she was a recipient of a Pollack-Krasner grant to attend the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild Communal Artists-in-Residence Program in 2023. She presented her research titled, "The Pretendian Will Weaponize NDNs Existence Against Them: Current Native American New Media Art Resisting the Master’s Tools" at the “CICA New Media Art Conference 2024” at the Czong Institute for Contemporary Art in Gimpo, South Korea.
- BFA in Studio Arts from the University of Illinois at Chicago
- MFA in Studio Art and Design from the University of Louisville.
