Brenda Kingery Highlight

Brenda Kingery, born in Oklahoma City in 1939, is of Chickasaw and Anglo-European heritage. A
contemporary painter, her work draws deeply from her Native American roots and her extensive experiences living and working abroad—in Japan, Uganda, and other parts of Africa—as well as attending Powwows in Oklahoma. Her paintings are rich in cultural symbolism, often described as “narrative symbolism,” blending elements of heritage and memory into vibrant, abstract compositions.

Kingery earned her Master’s degree in Fine Arts and Art History from the University of Oklahoma,
writing her thesis on Ryukyuan folk art. She pursued postgraduate studies in Fine Art at Ryukyu Daigaku University in Okinawa, Japan, and later studied Chinese language at Texas Tech University. She returned to Okinawa to teach drawing, painting, and Okinawan folk art for the University of Maryland’s Far East
Division. Before dedicating herself to art full-time, she also taught art history at San Antonio College.

Her work has been exhibited internationally, and she has received numerous honors, including Artist of the Year by the San Antonio Art League Museum (1993), Dynamic Woman of the Year from the Chickasaw Nation (2017), and induction into the Chickasaw Hall of Fame (2019). She serves on the Board of Trustees of the Institute of American Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Kingery is also the founding member of Threads of Blessing, a nonprofit that supports women in Ugandan and Honduran communities through textile arts.

She currently resides in San Antonio, Texas.

Curator
Will Long, Library Specialist I