b. 1978, Arkansas City, Kansas; lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico

Jamison Chas Banks is a multi-disciplinary artist who creates films, paintings, performances, and installations. His works often explore the history of war and territorial expansion, both literal and psychological. Banks appropriates and alters symbols employed in propaganda and popular culture and redeploys them in contexts that subvert their original meanings. He usually begins with an area of investigation that spawns a series of interrelated artworks in different media. For example, during his residency at the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Santa Fe in 2013 Banks created a film, screen prints, and a performance as part of the project Territories: The Frontier. Initially inspired the history of service in the armed forces by members of the artist’s family, this project explored the recent wars that the United States has been engaged in not as singular incidents, but part of a cyclical history.

                         -Janet Dees, SITE Santa Fe Lead Curator

Banks is currently Adjunct Professor of Printmaking (Studio Arts) at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, NM.

Banks is a dual citizen of the Seneca-Cayuga Tribe, and the Cherokee Tribe of Oklahoma.