Alex Wiseman’s outstanding exhibition, “Invisible Family (Portraits): Smoke is a Prayer Transforming the Truth,” which draws on Wiseman’s Native heritage and on the legacy of Native artmaking, is now on view in the Blue Galleries at Boise State until March 22. Curator Kirsten Furlong writes that “ … the ‘art world’ and its institutions, including museums and art schools, have finally begun to recognize the thousands of years of artmaking by artists from the over 600 tribal nations in the U.S. And they also recognize the complexity of those individual artists’ identities and their profound ties to the land.”

Wiseman is one of an impressive group of artists who draw from their Native traditions, but make decidedly contemporary, not traditional, art. Included In “Invisible Family” are five family portraits from the Native side of his lineage, none of whom they knew growing up. Hauntingly, they sourced the images of their grandmother, father and siblings from social media. Wiseman writes that using this method “ … evokes the fractured nature of their relationship.” Further, they have represented each subject as they appear in the present as “ … a testament to their resilience in the face of personal loss and generational suffering.”