Natalie Ball

Deer Woman's New Medicine

Natalie Ball (Klamath/Modoc) is a contemporary artist whose practice includes installation, performance, sculpture, and mixed-media textile art. Ball’s work draws from the community-derived visual vocabularies of her Black, Modoc, and Klamath heritage, particularly quilt designs that she learned from her grandmother. Deer Woman's New Medicine belongs to a larger body of work in which Ball deploys Deer Woman, an avatar of her own persona with deep roots in the spiritual worldview of Indigenous peoples. Deer Woman’s vengefulness toward perpetrators of violence against women has made her a spirit of enormous contemporary significance.