Elevate: Caite Mae Ramos

Elevate at 21c presents temporary exhibitions of works by artists living and working in the Northwest Arkansas community.

The program provides hotel guests and visitors with unique access to the work of notable regional artists, while featuring their work in the context of 21c’s contemporary art space.

Here in Northwest Arkansas there used to be thousands of acres of prairie and savanna. In Fayetteville we’re now down to two remnant prairies, one consisting of about four acres and the other about 15 acres.

Bison used to roam through these prairies collecting seed on their fur, spreading growth and aiding in the cycle of the prairie. The herd would usually follow to areas recently burned to snack on the fresh growth of the grass.

Each bison in this herd is holding ‘The Big Four’ prairie grass seeds and has the ability to swivel their head to enclose and protect the future of what they are holding.

Caite Mae Ramos (b.1991 Springdale, Arkansas) is an interdisciplinary artist and educator who utilizes woodworking, drawing, and plants to investigate their relationship with the land.

Ramos is an Oglala Lakota citizen of The Sioux Nation and founding member of the Prairie Pedagogy Research Group. Consulting and collaborating with botanists, The University of Arkansas Herbarium, and various remnant prairies they create work that incorporates lived and scientific research to connect with the leafy and legged things that surround us.

In 2015, Ramos received their BFA from Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, Washington. After graduation Ramos spent two years on the Olympic Peninsula fully immersed in the landscape and moved back to Northwest Arkansas in 2017. Ramos became a Master Gardener that same year and has been obsessed with growing plants in alternative ways in a home environment with limited access to land.

Ramos received The Windgate Accelerator Grant in 2026, International Sculpture Center’s Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Honorable Mention in 2025, The Artist 360 Graduate Fellow Grant through Mid America Arts Alliance in 2024 and received their Masters of Fine Arts from University of Arkansas in Fayetteville in 2025.