ARTIST STATEMENT
Agawaatebiigishin // Randallia (2025) reflects my experience of severe psychosis, mania, ECT, homelessness, and my hospital stay early 2025, in which I had a spiritual awakening, feeling my native ancestors judging yet supportive eyes. The painting has three sections; the top is a general vision of Gizhe-manidoo, the Creator, orchestrating the heavens and our planets, the stars, and everything that has and ever will ever be. The middle section shows the heavens pouring into the bottom half of the painting, which is an amalgamation of my delusional thoughts, hallucinations, and emotions during the three weeks I was in the psych ward, before I was ultimately diagnosed with Bipolar 1 with psychotic features. My artwork is a mirror into fractured spirit, for now.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Hello, I am Step Walkowiak. I am an artist born and raised in Chicago, and I’m now studying Art Education at North Park University! I grew up watching films/productions like The Last Unicorn and The Dark Crystal and their influence is definitely reflected in the themes within my artwork from across the years. I have created dozens of paintings, both digital and physical, and have recently found joy in doing charcoal portraits!
My grandfather grew up on the Bad River reservation in northern Wisconsin and married a piebald woman from Chicago. My mother put my siblings and me in summer programs for native youth every year growing up to expose us to our native culture as much as possible in his honor. Artists like Frank Waln, who I was lucky enough to have as an afterschool instructor when the T7 program was being held at Northside Prep when I was a kid, inspire me to challenge misconceptions about native culture and use my overwhelming emotions about our genocide, grief, and mistreatment, as well as my evolving identity, as fuel in my artwork.
© Step Walkowiak