Deerstine Suehead’s work “speaks to survival, grief, and the cycle of life. My works talk about how colonization has affected my Reservation and how the Gold Rush has affected my homeland. My art shows that the girl who grew up in a trailer, surrounded by illness from colonization and every type of violence, creates beauty from her own story of survival.” .

“My motivation for doing art is supported by my ancestors. Though the visions are my own, I channel messages from my lineage in dreams, both asleep and awake. I remind the observer that US soil belongs to First Nations, thousands of tribes that are all unique and sacred, individually, and collectively.”

Suehead portrays her family baskets, ceremonial spaces, and local wildlife. Deerstine is also a traditional tattoo practitioner, a role she upholds after it was lost for over a century in her family. In Ancestor, a sea otter, wearing a botsawi, a Ceremonial goose feather headpiece, and holding a beaded sash is surrounded thorns that represent protection. Through art and resiliency, Suehead reclaims this Native imagery, and combats the erasure California Native Americans have experienced.

In Ky·pe (2025), a woodpecker holds a locket of her great-great grandmother, Dearstine Starkey, a tribal Matriarch and Suehead’s namesake. Dearstine was a Nisenan woman and survivor of the California gold rush. Born in the northern California foothills, she was a weaver, quilter, and speaker of her Nisenan language. Highly respected within her community, she was well known for her weaving demonstrations at museums in northern California. “Gram Dearstine was full of love and life.”

Suehead writes, “Investing in yourself, whether on a piece of paper, a canvas, beadwork, or weaving is a form of opposition to oppression. I bring forth visions forth of transcendence, from victimhood to uprising, acknowledging that every one of our victories makes First Nations people stronger.”