Keri Ataumbi

Raised on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming by her Kiowa mother and Italian father, Keri Ataumbi was exposed to both traditional Native American and contemporary aesthetics. She attended Rhode Island School of Design before moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1990. She worked as a landscape designer while attending the Institute of American Indian Arts and College of Santa Fe. She graduated from the College of Santa Fe in 2004 with a BFA in painting and a minor in art history. Currently she works and lives with her husband in the country tending to their honeybees, orchard, organic vegetable garden, dogs and cats.

Artist Statement

Assuming jewelry is a form of art, there is any number of standard mass-produced pieces. Along side these easily recognized, easy to wear, staid mass marketable pieces, there is the fashion market, aimed to support trendy baubles. There is also ethnic jewelry, rooted in tradition, but more and more being made in mass for tourists. However emerging across the world and standing apart from these previously mentioned approaches to jewelry is the unique category of wearable art. In creating this type of jewelry the artist develops a concept and design, addresses the relationship between object and the body and thus engages in and deepens the discussion of fine art. My jewelry falls into the category of wearable art as it has a conceptual narrative exploration at its core. This inquiry happens through an exploration of imagery and materials to create a small sculpture complete upon its own, as well as worn on the body. Informed by current visual culture, the history and theory of modern art and my personal aesthetic, my goal is to create work that strives to embrace contemporary jewelry making strategies by applying artistic methodologies that are different from traditional design processes. Different in that their dynamic comes from a content-based enquiry rather than tried and true design, marketability or a traditional form.