WYLD Gallery at the Canopy Complex spotlights Native American art

David Sharett said that being an artist “was like an illness” that he couldn’t help.

It hit him at an early age, leading him to doodle on worksheets at school – and then get into trouble for them.

This “illness” eventually earned Charette a place at the WYLD Gallery in Austin, which meticulously showcases Native American art.

Ray Donnelly, 67, founded WYLD Gallery, located on Springdale Road, in late 2019. He recently retired from his career as an attorney and has a large collection of Native American art, which he began amassing in the 1980s after a trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Donnelly’s grandfather was half Chickasaw, but Donnelly does not identify as Native American and says he is “not the right person to talk about” Native culture. But through the WYLD Gallery, he created a platform to help Native American artists from various tribes discuss their heritage and histories.

These artists include Damien Charette, Joyce Nivakoya Harris, and Travis Mamati.

Damien Sharett

At a high school in Montana, a Sioux teacher saw no problem with Charette’s doodles. He saw art, and helped anchor it.

Charette ended up falling in love with printmaking and then painting, and realized that art helped him solidify him and explain to others what it meant to be a citizen—specifically Crowe.

The Crows are Native Americans concentrated mostly in Montana, where Sharett grew up on a reservation. He described the crow as people who pride themselves on …