Brenda Mallory’s work ranges from individual wall-hangings and sculptures to large-scale installations. She works with mixed media and organic materials, creating multiple forms, often joined with crude hardware or mechanical devices in ways that imply tenuous connections and aberrations. Texture and repeated rhythmic forms are instrumental to Mallory’s abstract compositions that employ breakages and visible repairs. She is interested in ideas of interference and disruption of long-established systems in nature and human cultures.

Mallory lives in Portland but grew up in Oklahoma and is a citizen of Cherokee Nation. She received a BA in Linguistics & English from UCLA and a BFA from Pacific Northwest College of Art. Mallory has received multiple grants including from the Regional Arts & Culture Council, Oregon Arts Commission, and Ford Family Foundation. She has received the Eiteljorg Museum Contemporary Native Art Fellowship and the Native Arts and Culture Foundation Fellowship in Visual Arts. Residencies include Anderson Ranch, GLEAN, Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts, C3:initiative Papermaking Residency, Jordan Schnitzer Printmaking Residency at Sitka Center, Signal Fire, Bullseye Glass, and Ucross where she received the Fellowship for Native American Visual Artists.