John Hitchcock

John Hitchcock is a contemporary artist and musician. Hitchcock is an enrolled member of the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma, with Comanche and Northern European ancestry, based in Madison, Wisconsin. He is originally from Medicine Park, Oklahoma.

Hitchcock currently works in multimedia, including neon, textiles, printmaking, sound, and video, to reclaim narratives of resilience and survival. He uses visual storytelling to understand his relationships with community, land, and culture. Abstract representations, language, and intense colors reference his Kaku’s (Comanche grandmother’s) beadwork and childhood memories of growing up in the Wichita Mountains of Oklahoma on Comanche Tribal lands next to the US field artillery military base Ft. Sill. Many of the images are interpretations of stories told by his Kiowa and Comanche grandparents, as well as abstract representations influenced by beadwork and intercultural identities. Embracing contemporary materials and creative practices while honoring his ancestors, he presents a celebratory aesthetic of cultural hybridity and survival.

He earned his MFA in printmaking and photography at Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, and received his BFA from Cameron University, Lawton, Oklahoma. He has received the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Artistic Innovation and Collaboration grant in New York, the Jerome Foundation Grant in Minnesota, the Creative Arts Award, and the Emily Mead Baldwin Award in the Creative Arts at the University of Wisconsin. He is currently an Artist and the Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he teaches screenprinting, relief, and installation art.

Hitchcock’s artwork has been exhibited at numerous venues, including the National Gallery, Washington, D.C.; Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon; Missoula Art Museum, Missoula, Montana; Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ; North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Fork, North Dakota; New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut; International Print Center New York; New York; Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico; Tweed Museum of Art, Duluth, MN; American Culture Center in Shanghai, China, The Rauschenberg Project Space, New York, New York; and Air, Land, Seed at the Venice Biennale 54th International of Art at the University of Ca’ Foscari, Venice, Italy.