Choctaw artist overcame hardship and reconnected with tribal culture

Tuesday, February 5, 2019  

By Kevin Abourezk

When he was 13, Bobby Von Martin lived in a hotel known by some in Bakersfield, California, as a drug den.

The Choctaw teenager grew up hard in California, his parents struggling with addiction and lacking any connection to his Native culture. He fought depression and suicidal thoughts and would occasionally cut himself.

He had begun creating art by the age of 7, in part to ease his loneliness.

As a teenager, one of his first paintings depicted a Native man crying and holding a beer bottle with blood inside of it. He gave the painting to his mother, who was an alcoholic, hoping she might stop drinking.

“I gave it to her … hoping she would just look at it every day and realize she was killing herself,” he said.

One day, an elder from the nearby Tule River Reservation found Martin in the hotel in Bakersfield and offered to take him for a visit to his reservation. He took part in a sweat lodge ceremony and realized for the first time he could live a normal life.

“It was like the first time I’ve been around people who prayed and people who weren’t fighting,” he said. “It basically changed my life.”

Today, the 41-year-old Choctaw citizen is a renowned artist whose work has become popular in faraway places like Switzerland, as well as in his tribe’s headquarters in Oklahoma.

One of his most recent works depicts Nathan Phillips, the Omaha tribal elder who gained notoriety recently when he walked into a crowd of Catholic high school students while singing and drumming at the end of the Indigenous Peoples March in Washington, D.C.

The painting shows Phillips singing, his drum obscuring all but the red “Make America Great Again” hat of the teenager facing him.

Another painting depicts Phillips’ face in black and white with red paint splashed over it.

Martin said he was frustrated after seeing the video of Phillips facing the Catholic high school students. He said he felt protective of the 64-year-old man and decided to paint his likeness as a way to show his respect for him.

“When they were trying to discredit him, I felt like I just had to honor him by painting him,” he said.

He said most of his work is acrylic paint on canvas, though he does use watercolor occasionally as well. He said his work largely focuses on activism and awareness and has created numerous paintings on the boarding school era, as well as portraits of chiefs and elders. He’s created paintings depicting the Standing Rock demonstrations and often seeks to create focused on important current events.

“Anything that’s real impactful at the moment, I like to just dive into and just express myself through my art,” he said.

His professional career took off three years ago after Martin met the well-known Mexican and Native artist James Luna, who introduced him to a wider circle of art enthusiasts.

“I showed him my work and then I sold all my paintings,” he said.

The experience made him realize he could become a professional artist and earn enough to support his family while educating others about Native culture and history.

He’s especially proud to be able to offer free art classes to youth in the Fresno area. He said teaching youth art can help them, as it helped Martin, to cope with the challenges they face.

“Sitting down with a pencil and a paper was the only thing that kept my mind occupied,” he said. “My art has gotten me to where I have to come out and deal with people. It’s even helping me now as an adult."