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In this painting, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith combined imagery associated with Native American identity with marks reminiscent of American mid-century gestural abstraction. A stereotyped depiction of an Indigenous man, an ancient Mississippian vessel, an animal with a heart line from Great Plains paintings, and figures from Columbia River basketry and Northwest Coast textiles appear across the canvas.
In "I See Red: Migration," Smith layered concepts and images to address issues facing Native peoples from the 1970s to the present, including land relationships and colonial displacement. Through techniques of appropriation, she foregrounded the rich and diverse history of Native American cultural production while challenging the celebration of Abstract Expressionism as indicative of American artistic exceptionalism.
