Born and raised in Rapid City, South Dakota, Marty Two Bulls Jr. was destined to become an artist.
“I come from a big family of artists,” Two Bulls Jr. said. “From my grandparents’ generation down, pretty much everyone in my family is involved in the arts. And a lot of my cousins are artists of all kinds such as painters, songwriters, musicians, filmmakers and journalists. A big part of my family history and dynamics is in art making.”
A descendent of a long line of Oglala Lakota artists and the son of accomplished artist and cartoonist, Marty Two Bulls Sr., Two Bulls Jr. dove head-first into the artistic world as a child.
“I grew up making art,” Two Bulls Jr. said. “My dad is an artist, and I grew up in his studio. He was my first art teacher. I kind of apprenticed in his studio – cleaning brushes and doing the dirty work – but also getting to use his tools to experiment and explore.”
Two Bulls Jr. ‘s curiosity and passion for the arts grew rapidly as he got older, and although his father’s teachings had laid groundwork for his talents to grow upon, he was constantly searching for new ways to express himself and create his own unique style.
“When he was growing up, I never tried to dictate his style or try to force my style onto him. I don’t think any artist should do that,” Two Bulls Sr. said. “I wanted him to develop his own style and do what he liked to do rather than what I or anyone else may have wanted or expected him to do. I just gave him access to everything, showed him how to use the tools and pretty much just turned him loose.”
From a young age, there was little to no doubt in Two Bulls Jr.’s mind that he wanted to pursue the arts for the rest of his life.
“It’s just something I have to do, it’s like I can only be an artist,” Two Bulls Jr. said. “Early in my life I tried to be a journalist. I love reading and I love the power of good journalism, becoming an artist was something I had to do. It’s my calling.”
When the time came to transition into adulthood, Two Bulls Jr. knew exactly where he was going after graduation.
“I left town after high school and went to school in New Mexico at the Institute of American Indian Arts,” Two Bulls Jr. said. “I got a BFA in Studio Arts with an emphasis in ceramics and printmaking. I grew up doing a lot of traditional painting, drawing and sculpting, so when I went to art school, I was really drawn towards media that I hadn’t had experience with before. I was especially curious about ceramics because I never had any experience with clay, and there’s a really strong ceramics tradition in the Southwest within Indigenous communities.”
After receiving his degree, Two Bulls Jr. decided to remain in Santa Fe, one of the largest artistic markets in the U.S., for the time being. He found work at local art galleries, climbing the ranks from a front desk person to a curator.
“I spent about ten years in Santa Fe after graduation,” Two Bulls Jr. said. “The gallery work was a great way for me to stay surrounded by the arts and have opportunities to make connections for myself and meet a lot of people. There’s also a really big Native Art and Contemporary Art scene there. It was a good experience to be working with such a diverse group of artists.”
After over a decade working with commercial art galleries and a few big life events, Two Bulls Jr. started to recognize a desire to return home to South Dakota.
“In 2017, my wife and I had our first daughter,” Two Bulls Jr. said. “We decided we wanted to move back to South Dakota because it’s where I’m from, and I really wanted my daughter to grow up around her Lakota community and her relatives. Also, at that point, I was starting to get really tired of working in commercial galleries.”
The timing of it all couldn’t have worked much better. Shortly after Two Bulls Jr. and his wife came to the decision they wanted to start working their way back to Rapid City, he received a message offering him a teaching position at the Oglala Lakota College (OLC).
“The school was trying to start up a graphic design program, and they asked me if I wanted to come teach,” Two Bulls Jr. said. “Coincidentally, my wife was offered the executive director position at the Seventh Circuit CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) in Rapid City. It was like all the stars were aligned and everything really fell into place.”
The Two Bulls family quickly wrapped up their lives and completed the move back to Rapid City in early 2017. Two Bulls Jr. began his new job at OLC almost immediately.
“I built the graphic design program pretty much from the bottom up,” Two Bulls Jr. said. “Using my experience in the field and drawing on my father’s experience, I was able to put a good program together. I’ve been teaching it ever since.”
Although much of his work tends to fall under the contemporary art category, Two Bulls Jr. believes that it’s important for artists to become proficient in many different media, including the digital ones.
“My dad worked for newspapers for many years as a graphic designer,” Two Bulls Jr. said. “He worked at the Rapid City Journal for a while, so I picked up those skills from him as well. I learned how to use programs like Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, and I also learned how to build websites and design logos. Those skills have helped me out a lot even to this day.”
Two Bulls Jr. has been teaching the graphic design program at OLC for eight years now. But despite having a full time day job teaching students the arts, he has not lost focus nor passion for his own personal projects.
“Right now, my artwork is very interdisciplinary,” Two Bulls Jr. said. “There’s a lot of things I’ll do over and over again, but I don’t identify with media in the way that I think some folks do by saying ‘I’m a painter.’ I have training and experience in a lot of different media, and I think of these media like tools for expression – I try to keep a diverse toolbox.”
Rather than confining himself to what could be considered the typical artistic process, Two Bulls Jr. prefers to keep his mind open to all potential paths he could take once an idea comes to him.
“When I have an idea for an artwork, I don’t come at it from the perspective of how it would work only as a painting or only as a ceramic object,” Two Bulls Jr. said. “I really try to let the ideas or concepts dictate what the medium should be. Some things work better in two dimensions and some things work better in three – it really depends on the idea.”
Aside from his personal works, Two Bulls Jr. also takes commissions. One of his more recent public works was a mural completed in January 2024 at the Oyate Health Center in Rapid City – a hospital managed by the Oglala Sioux, the Rosebud Sioux and the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribes – which was established in 2022. Once the construction was complete, the hospital began purchasing artwork from mainly native artists from all over the South Dakota area.
In addition to the collection of original pieces the hospital started to collect, they also commissioned four murals.
“I got one of the commissions,” Two Bulls Jr. said. “I did a sort of photo collage piece about the history of the land that [the hospital is] on because it has a really complicated past. Originally, the building started out as a federal Indian boarding school, then it became a segregated tuberculosis clinic, then it became an Indian health services hospital. I knew when they were building the new hospital they were going to tear down the old stuff, so I really wanted to preserve some of that history in the new space.”
After he completed the mural for the Oyate Health Center, Two Bulls Jr. continued working on more ideas for large public works, and it became his latest tool of expression for a cause that he felt was important to his and his family’s culture.
“There’s a lot of larger public works in South Dakota, especially in this area,” Two Bulls Jr. said. “But there haven’t been a lot of works like that done by Native artists. A lot of times there are works that depict images of Native people that were created by non-Native artists, so that’s the work I’ve been focusing on lately both as an artist and an educator.”
Two Bulls Jr. strongly believes in the importance of creating art that properly represents his culture and educating young artists to do the same.
“That’s a big part of the mission of my graphic design program,” Two Bulls Jr. said. “I want to help create competent artists and designers who can take on jobs like me. Some of it seems really small and insignificant, but any art that represents our culture has an effect on the way we’re seen and on the way we see ourselves. So whenever we can have somebody from our community creating art, I feel like it’s a healthier form of representation.”
Two Bulls Jr.’s dedication to the pursuit of education for his students and himself has not yet peaked. After three more years of schooling at Bard College, he received his Master of Fine Arts degree in the spring of 2024.
“I’m more than proud of what he’s accomplished,” Two Bulls Sr. said. “His successes are so wonderful to me. What he’s done is beyond any expectation I’ve had.”
Two Bulls Jr. plans to continue to use his knowledge of the arts to educate young artists on the importance of self expression and culture in the hopes of helping to preserve the past and build a better future.
