April Holder

Artist Biography

April Holder is an enrolled citizen of the Sac and Fox Nation of Oklahoma. Born and raised in Shawnee Oklahoma where she learned traditional Sauk practices and ways of life that her family has kept throughout generations.

In 2003 she moved to Santa Fe New Mexico and attended the Institute of American Indian Arts where she earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2008, With an emphasis on mix media installation work and sculpture.

Over the course of Holder’s art career her work has evolved to incorporate her lived experiences and knowledge as an Indigenous woman. Through visual narratives, of historical memory and intergenerational relationships, Holder bridges community, people, and identity. Addressing themes of both trauma and joy. Much of April’s work centers around her daughter, Aurora. Motherhood is a constant source of inspiration for Holder and her journey through life with her daughter has become a focal point in her work.

In 2020 Holder was the Artist in Residence at Ute Mountain Studios in Questa, New Mexico and in 2021 was the Artist in Residence at IAIA.

Holder is currently an MFA candidate at PNCA/Willamette University in Portland, Oregon. She hopes to expand her professional capacity to elevate Indigenous artists and communities with her education.

Artist Statement

This work is about my relationship to Land, the physical space I occupy and the historical space that I find a relationship to as an Indigenous person. It is about my people's intricate connection with the environment through the living practice of Indigenous spirituality, and the medicines my people use for our spiritual, mental, and emotional health. This work illustrates how these things are intersectional, intertwine since our very beginning and in my own personal history shape my existence and familiarity with the Land I walk upon. This painting is also about my relationship to my identity. I am of three tribes, the Sauk and Fox, the Tonkawa, and the Wichita, And though these three tribes are very different all shaped by identity. This work is about the promises, the offerings we make to ourselves and how we keep true to them.