Bio

Jonathan Thunder (b. 1977)

Jonathan Thunder attended the Institute of American Indian Arts - Studio Arts Program in Santa Fe (1999-2000) and received a B.A. in Visual Effects and Motion Graphics from the Art Institute International in Minneapolis (2005). His epic animated mural Manifest’o was installed in the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport 2021 - 2023. Thunder has received numerous awards and fellowships, including the Jim Denomie Memorial Scholarship, the McKnight Foundation Fellowship, the Minnesota State Arts Board Grant, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, and the Tiwahe Foundation Leadership Grant. His work has been included in numerous one-person, two-person, and group exhibitions at All My Relations Gallery, the Duluth Art Institute, the Highpoint Center for Printmaking, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Muskegon Museum of Art, Rochester Art Center, and the Tweed Museum of Art. Jonathan Thunder: Good Mythology premiered on PBS American Masters in 2023.

Artist Statement:

“Visual storytelling plays a big role in my practice. In the creative process I work from intuition, but as the idea is put together, I’ll sense a vignette emerging. I draw inspiration from influential experiences. These current events become the setting or arrangement for the painting, short film or animation. I’m also a life student of Ojibwe culture and storytelling. I was raised in the Twin Cities, and I was born on the Red Lake Indian Reservation. These two worlds are integrated to me, yet far apart. Both worlds inform my perspective. I’m also attracted to urban minutiae, bad graffiti, tattoos, tribal symbolism and children’s tales. I feel these elements help place my work in our time and connect it to where we are today, which is not always easy to define by predetermined parameters in art and culture. I mix genres, themes and culture to paint a more accurate picture of my experience, whether that is on a canvas, in a projection, or telling stories through my films.” - Jonathan Thunder 2026