About

Misheho micha ayukpachi. Saholhchifoat Laurel Ánh Grimes. Chikasha, naahollo, micha người Việt saya. Anchokka-chaffaat Thốt Nốt, Việt Nam, micha Edmond micha Enid, Oklahoma-ako aaminti. Aamintili Round Rock, Texas.

Laurel Grimes is an emerging artist and scholar currently living on the traditional homelands of the O-ga-xpa Ma-zhoⁿ (Quapaw), 𐓏𐒰𐓓𐒰𐓓𐒷 𐒼𐓂𐓊𐒻 𐓆𐒻𐒿𐒷 𐓀𐒰^𐓓𐒰^(Osage), Kiikaapoi (Kickapoo), Gáuigú (Kiowa), and Wichita peoples. Grimes belongs to the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma and carries Irish heritage on her father’s side. Laurel’s mother is Vietnamese and immigrated to the United States as a refugee after the Vietnam War. Grimes’ heritage and complex family histories deeply inform her work as she focuses on artistic expressions of conceptions of Indigenous femininities in relation to felt experiences with land, displacement, and violence under the colonial project. Grimes’ work embraces the ancestral histories, contemporary experiences, and futurities of Indigenous and Asian/immigrant peoples; striving to engage in discourses that are intersectional and self-determined.

A working artist for almost a decade, Grimes’ professional work ranges from freelance passion projects to commercial design. Working primarily with nonprofits and grant-funded organizations, Grimes uses art and design to visualize clients forward. Grimes’ personal creative work is primarily concerned with enjoying exploration, largely centering cultural patterns and plants/animals motifs on functional pieces across mediums. Her focus for large scale projects has shifted in recent years towards collaborative and community creative work, with a desire to center kincentric community relationships and Indigenous visual/material culture at the forefront. Laurel’s individual and collaborative works have been featured in exhibitions at galleries and museums including The Stories We Wear (2023) and Throughline (2021). She hopes to continue centering creative community collaboration in her work in higher education, as she pursues a PhD in Native American Art History at the University of Oklahoma.