Landscapes Remember What Painters Forgot in Kay WalkingStick’s Vision

A stroll through Kay WalkingStick’s landscapes reveals what 19th-century painters left out: the presence of Indigenous peoples. Her works, now showcased alongside the famed Hudson River School at the New-York Historical Society, highlight a striking absence in America’s earliest landscape art. While Hudson River School artists like Thomas Cole and Albert Bierstadt captured sweeping vistas to promote a vision of untouched wilderness, their canvases quietly erased the communities who called these lands home. WalkingStick’s approach is both homage and critique. She mirrors the lush technique of her predecessors, but her titles and motifs—like geometric parfleche patterns and beadwork—reinsert Indigenous histories into the scenery. These patterns act as visual thresholds, inviting viewers to pause and consider what’s missing beneath the beauty. By blending landscape with cultural memory, WalkingStick transforms the American vista from a silent backdrop into a layered story. In her hands, the land itself becomes a witness, holding echoes of those who came before. #IndigenousArt #HudsonRiverSchool #KayWalkingStick #Culture