Presentation with Alison Bremner | What Do I Do With My Hands?
Date & Time
Tuesday, October 13, 2026
6:30 p.m.
Doors open at 6 p.m.
This event is in the past.
Tickets
FREE and open to the public;
Registration required
Artist Alison Bremner shares past work and inspirations, as well as current and future projects.
Bremner holds a long relationship with the Burke Museum from her time as a Bill Holm Center grantee studying Tlingit creations in 2012, to participating as a curator in the Burke's exhibit Here & Now: Native Artists Inspired (2014-15), to co-curating the inaugural Northwest Native Art gallery for the opening of the new Burke Museum building in 2019, and most recently demonstrating her new formline nail art in the Artist Studio this year. Additionally, the Burke Museum Arts & Cultures collections hold 14 individual artworks by Alison Bremner, including paintings, textiles, prints, as well as her drinkware collection from the 2024 Starbucks Artist Collaboration Series and most recently the 2026 FIFA World Cup Commemorative Orca Card.
Tlingit art has always been a way of keeping history. Without setting out to, Bremner finds herself inside that continuum — depicting modern culture, events and stories through traditional formline design, carrying the practice of history-keeping forward into the contemporary moment.
This event is made possible by Friends of Native Art.
About the Artist
Alison Bremner is a Tlingit artist born and raised in Juneau, Alaska, in the traditional homelands of the Tlingit people. Working in formline design, acrylic paint, wallpaper collage, digital drawings and found objects, Bremner tells contemporary stories that portray the current Tlingit experience - rejecting exotification while bringing visibility to the cultural nuances of daily Indigenous life. Culture is not stagnant. Through contact and technological revolution, Tlingit culture constantly adapts, observes, and claims space in the world. Bremner’s practice is rooted in traditional formline design learned directly from Tsimshian masters David Albert Boxley and David Robert Boxley.
Bremner’s work is held in the permanent collections of the Burke Museum (Seattle), British Museum (London), the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Château-Musée de Boulogne-sur-Mer (France), the Frye Art Museum (Seattle), and the Hood Museum of Art (Dartmouth), among others. Notable collaborations include a national cup release with Starbucks, design consulting with PBS, and a merchandise collection for the Santa Fe Indian Market. Alongside her commercial and exhibition practice, Bremner is committed to creating work that returns to community, such as pieces made for potlatches, dance, and ceremony.
