Current Art Gallery Exhibits

Epping Gallery

Hattie Lee Mendoza

Resilient Joy

November 17 - December 19, 2025

• Mendoza’s Statement
  A member of the Cherokee Nation, my process is a personal expression of the Native American Diaspora. I utilize found or gifted fibers and objects while incorporating Cherokee basketry, pottery, or beadwork patterns. I myself am a collage of cultures and react by collaging materials from my ancestors, contemporary community, and personal life experiences.
  
  My fiber weavings, made of ribbon, bias tape, lace, etc., often gifted to me by friends and family, or sourced from my community, were born from a desire to connect with my Cherokee Nation Heritage. My great-grandma Hattie was proud of being Cherokee and being from Oklahoma, but generationally, most of the stories got lost. As I studied about Cherokee basketry, I started thinking about the ever-growing pile of bias tape in my studio. I began using it to make weavings affixed to stretcher bars. These are a visual reference of my standing in the Cherokee Diaspora—proud of my heritage and wanting to connect and grow deeper, but also still being influenced by the other communities I’m formed by.
  
  Some weavings actually have skips in the patterns. I leave them as a visual representation of being unable to learn from Cherokee elders in person yet—but still rebuilding and learning in order to continue a legacy for future generations. I love repurposing and stewarding what little bit of objects and fibers I can. My great-grandmother also saved and used every little thing she could, so I feel like I’m honoring family heritage in that way as well.
  
  My Plate Painting Series was born out of reading the book “Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Changed the World” by Jack Weatherford. This book covers an incredible depth of historical facts related to a myriad of knowledge, resources, and skills appropriated and stolen from Native Americans during colonial invasions, which were then taken back to Europe and the rest of the world. I’ve always been drawn to forgotten, unvalued, gilded antique plates in thrift stores and garage sales. I started associating the gilding on plates with gold that could have possibly come from the Americas, where Natives were forced to mine and not see the benefits of the finished product. What if a gilded plate, made in France from resources taken from the Americas (it was not only gold taken for ceramic companies, but also clay and bone), eventually ended up back in America and discarded onto a thrift store shelf, and was then returned to Native hands and remade, revalued, and painted with imagery born from the historical lineages from which it had originally been taken?
  
  My studio is a flux of mediums and objects in constant conversation: a gouache painting is printed on fabric, which is collaged into a fiber artwork, informing a piece of wearable art, or inspiring the composition of a new plate painting. Nothing is off-limits to being repurposed and reimagined.
  
  Graphic design, fine art, and craft are all woven together in my studio, at times literally. My work represents the joy of our diverse world; cultivating collaboration and celebration of each other makes the world burst with beautiful cultural and generational texture.
• About Hattie Lee Mendoza
  Hattie Lee Mendoza is a multidisciplinary artist who grew up in Fowler, KS, and now lives in Peoria, IL. She holds an MFA from Bradley University in Peoria, IL, and a BA in graphic design from Tabor College in Hillsboro, KS. Influenced by her great-grandmother and namesake’s Cherokee heritage and stories, Mendoza revives and continues that legacy within her family after generational loss of cultural connection. Her maternal grandmother’s frugal values, stemming from a Depression-era childhood, are also reflected in Mendoza’s practice by including repurposed and recycled personal, family, and community items, as well as thrifted and found objects.
  
  Mendoza has been published in the Number 155 Midwest Issue of New American Paintings, in Excellence in Fibers volumes VII and VIII by Fiber Art Now, and in the Winter 2024 issue of Art Focus. She has exhibited in thirteen states, with two solo exhibitions in 2024 at Oklahoma State University and Cameron University in Oklahoma. A large mixed-media collage was acquired and installed in the American Studies Department at the University of Notre Dame. She also had work in Expo Chicago 2024 with the Center for Native Futures gallery and in a group exhibition at Gerald Peters Contemporary in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 2025. Select awards include: first place in contemporary weaving at the 2024 Eiteljorg Indian Market; first place in Abstract Art at the 55th Red Cloud Indian Art Show in Pine Ridge, SD; an Honorable Mention at D’Art Gallery’s “Spot On #3” in Denver, CO; as well as first Place in Contemporary Basketry and third place in miniatures at the juried 53rd Trail of Tears Art Show in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. For more details about Mendoza, visit her website and her Instagram page.

For more information, to request pricing, or to be added to the mailing list for upcoming exhibitions, contact Trevor Power, Art Gallery Curator.