Laurel Grimes is currently a PhD student in Native American Art History at the University of Oklahoma. Grimes’ most recent research project investigated processes of rematriation, representations of Indigenous femininities, and responses to sexualized and racialized violence in women’s contemporary artistic portraiture as demonstrations of the Becomingness of intersectional Indigenous feminine identities. She is continuing to expand upon this topic, and has presented the findings of her initial explorations at the Newberry Consortium of American Indian & Indigenous Studies (NCAIS) Conference, the University of Oklahoma Russell Center Art History Symposium, and the University of California Davis Native American Studies Symposium.

Grimes received a BA in Communication Design with a minor in Studio Art and a BA in Native American & Indigenous Studies with Honors at Fort Lewis College, and a MA in Native American Studies with concentrations in Indigenous Media & Arts and Cultural Knowledge, Language, & History from the University of Oklahoma. Her previous research projects have addressed at-large Chickasaw Nation citizen (citizens not living on Nation lands) perceptions of self, community identity, and indigeneity in connection to levels of fluency in Chikashshanompa’; and used qualitative, trauma-conscious research methods to investigate familial histories and interrogate the impact of mother-daughter relationships on the development of conceptions of femininity and womanhood in young girls. She has been published in the PMLA Journal of the Modern Language Association and presented at multiple international conferences (American Indian Studies Organization Conference, Global Indigenous Studies from Multiple Perspectives Conference, Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums (ATALM) Conference), sharing her work with Indigenous language revitalization and the incorporation of visual language into revitalization efforts in collaboration with the All Our Kin Collective, who she has worked closely with since 2021.