Dana Claxton: The Mustang Suite

An Indigenous woman dressed in scarlet, fringes chasing downward from her raised arms to the floor, stands in one of Dana Claxton’s five large-scale portrait photos from The Mustang Suite. The stark background and crackling crispness of the image show why the works by this artist of Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux ancestry have travelled the country before becoming part of the Dalhousie Art Gallery’s permanent collection: Tackling themes of western assimilation and Indigenous identity, the provocative snaps pose family members next to various refigured mustangs—from a muscle car to a white woman with horse blinders and mouth bit. The gallery calls them “iconic as they layer social commentary and critique.”