Avis Charley (Spirit Lake Dakota / Diné) is a visual artist born and raised in Los Angeles, California. She earned her BFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Charley is a ledger artist and figurative painter chronicling the evolving Native American identity from pre-reservation period to the present day, from ancestral homelands to the contemporary urban context.
Ledger art was Charley’s first art form, as she values bringing a woman’s perspective into a male-dominated art form. In time, Charley transitioned to oil paintings, centering Indigenous women within modern settings, reflecting the vibrancy of her people’s culture. She creates work for future generations as she captures recent stories and experiences.
Charley’s work is in the permanent collections of the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, Minneapolis Institute of Art, and Museum of Contemporary Native American Art.