March 2009
 Richard Ray Whitman (Euchee/Creek) is an internationally acclaimed artist, photographer, and actor. In 2009 he was in three films that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, two features—Barking Water (d. Sterlin Harjo) and The Only Good Indian (d. Kevin Wilmot), and the documentary We Shall Remain: Wounded Knee 1973 (d. Stanley Nelson). He has acted in numerous other films. Whitman is an internationally acclaimed artist and photographer whose works have been exhibited at museums and galleries nationally and internationally, including the “Continuum 12” exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian in New York, the Venice Biennale in Italy, the national touring exhibition “Honor the Earth - Impacted Nations” and Artrain USA’s “Native Views: Influences of Modern Culture.” Whitman’s work has been published in magazines including Native Peoples and American Indian Art, and featured in books including Strong Hearts, from the photography publisher Aperture.
Whitman has been an Artist in Residence with the Oklahoma Arts Council, teaching art in public and alternative schools. He has taught art through the Indian Youth Council and the youth-at-risk program at the Native American Center in Oklahoma City, and has worked with youthful offenders, teaching art as rehabilitative therapy as a visiting artist in several state corrections institutions. He attended the Oklahoma School of photography, California Institute of the Arts and graduated from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, NM in 1970. In 1973 he participated in the People’s struggle at Wounded Knee, an experience that expanded his vision of his role as an artist and tribal citizen. Whitman grew up in Gypsy, Oklahoma. He belongs to the Yuchi tribe of the Muscogee Creek Nation.
"Independent film/video offers a way of manifesting the vitality of cultural information & experience - a way of comprehending. An alternative/departure from the (master) neo-colonial narratives. The possibilities that the creative-processes can offer… willing to explore, risks, etc...A More Honest Portraiture, A More Self-Determined Story… A More Determined Eye, and of course w/Inherent Responsibility. I try to act instinctively and accordingly as a TzoYaHa (Yuchi-person), as a multi-dimensional being, as an Artist."
Screened by NMAI
Image credit:
Richard Ray Whitman - courtesy of the filmmaker; Richard Ray Whitman - courtesy
of the filmmaker
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