Kent Monkman

How the West Was Won, a copperplate etching hand-painted in watercolor by the artist, explores themes central to Kent Monkman's work. In a practice spanning more than two decades, Monkman has challenged colonial power dynamics, often reversing the stereotypical roles of Indigenous-settler relationships in cheeky encounters set against majestic North American landscapes. Early examples of this include: Ceci n'est pas une pipe (2001), Heaven and Earth (2001), and Cree Master 1 (2002). How the West Was Won engages these themes within the iconography of the American West – Monkman's alter ego Miss Chief Eagle Testickle dominates a cowboy against the backdrop of a desert, an open sky, and the imposing sandstone buttes of Monument Valley.