Many nations
Gallery guide to Native American art
The excitement of Indian Market comes with a downside: Santa Fe enjoys sunny skies an average of 325 days per year, and August can be sweltering. A returning visitor might remember scrambling for shade under a crowded portal or watching sweat bead on the sun-beat necks of shoppers in line for Navajo tacos. Fortunately for those prone to sunburn, art galleries across Santa Fe offer a cool respite from the heat and bustle.
Native art is a broad classification that includes hundreds of diverse cultures. At the exhibitions listed below, fourthgeneration potters offer their own takes on customary methods. Painters explore Native identity with swirling hues and bold lines. Century-old Hopi basket plaques show off symbolic designs not far from large-scale photographs making pop cultural references. Here you’ll discover painting, sculpture, jewelry and more — representational and abstract — produced by Native artists both local and far-flung.
Downtown Manitou Galleries
123 Palace Ave.; manitougalleries.com Cultural Connection and Change: Five Indigenous Artists Explore Traditional Arts in Modern Times Aug. 19 to 30
At its Palace Avenue location one block from the Plaza, Manitou Galleries simultaneously presents a Native jewelry exhibition and a show called Culture, Connection, and Change: Five Indigenous
Artists Explore Traditional Arts in Modern Times. At the latter, Nocona Burgess (Comanche), Upton Greyshoes Ethelbah (Santa Clara Pueblo/White Mountain Apache), Ed Natiya (Navajo), George Rivera (Pojoaque) and William Rogers (Navajo) explore modern Native identity through painting, bronze and other media. At the jewelry exhibition, more than 40 artists show necklaces, earrings, bracelets, rings, pendants and more. Samuel LaFountain (Turtle Mountain Chippewa), Jennifer Curtis (Navajo), Adrian Wall (Jemez Pueblo) and Kenneth Johnson (Muscogee/Seminole) are among those adorning the downtown gallery with gold, sterling, bronze, fossils and gemstones.
Sorrel Sky Gallery
125 W. Palace Ave.; sorrelsky.com Native American Group Show Aug. 20 to 31
Sorrel Sky Gallery highlights Native artists in an intimate setting. Jewelry by Ben Nighthorse, a Northern Cheyenne member of the council of 44 Cheyenne chiefs and a former U.S. senator from Colorado, is represented exclusively at Sorrel Sky. Melding Northern Plains design with a high-fashion flair, Nighthorse creates pendants, necklaces, earrings and more. Also showing work is Kevin Red Star (Crow), who views Apsáalooke culture through a unique lens. Warriors, ceremonies and regalia spring to life through Red Star’s often sunset-colored pigments. Cochiti painter Mateo Romero employs deep, whirling tones to depict the rhythmic, trance-like nature of Pueblo dance and culture. Navajo jeweler Ray Tracey draws inspiration from the intricacies of the natural world, and Victoria Adams (Southern Cheyenne/Arapaho) conjures plant, animal and human forms from precious metals, fossils and gems. Additional Native and non-Native artists also show here. Meet some of them at the artist reception on Aug. 20 from 5 to 7:30 p.m. An expansive collection of Navajo rugs, vintage and recent, is on display through August, and gallerist Jackson Clark gives free lectures at 4 p.m. on Aug. 20 and at 11:30 a.m. on Aug. 22.
Ellsworth Gallery
215 E. Palace Ave.; ellsworthgallery.com D1 & D2: Re-Connection Through August 22
In addition to Japanese antiques, Ellsworth Gallery shows new paintings and sculptures from around the world. Through Aug. 22, view a two-man exhibition titled D1 & D2: Re-Connection. Doug Coffin (Citizen Potawatomi Nation/Muscogee) and his godson Doug Black present individual styles of sculpture that are at once unique and connected. Coffin grew up at an Indian boarding school, Haskell Institute in Lawrence, Kansas, where his father worked as a sports coach. He became enchanted and inspired by the craftsmanship of powwow regalia and art. Black, who is non-Native, also grew up in Kansas but cultivated his artistic voice in Japan. Over years of exchanging images and ideas, the two men formed a deep artistic connection. The show features Coffin’s acrylic paintings and large-scale sculpture along with Black’s ceramics.
King Galleries
130 Lincoln Ave.; kinggalleries.com Annual Indian Market Show Aug. 19 to 22
At King Galleries, the diverse styles of various Native cultures and communities pop to life in multiple dimensions. At the gallery’s Annual
Indian Market Show, Aug. 19-22, pottery by Les Namingha (Hopi-Tewa), Jared Tso (Diné), Susan Folwell (Santa Clara Pueblo), Al Qöyawayma (Hopi), Robert Patricio (Acoma) and others fills the space with form and pattern. The art of pottery runs deep in many of the artists’ families. Russell Sanchez (San Ildefonso Pueblo) learned to make hand-coiled, stone-polished pottery from his great-aunt, pottery matriarch Rose Gonzales. Sisters Tammy Garcia and Autumn Borts-Medlock, great-great-granddaughters of Tewa matriarch Sara Fina Tafoya, harvest and process local clay by hand. Steve Lucas (HopiTewa), the great-great-grandson of Nampeyo of Hano, creates smooth, thin-walled forms adorned with cultural designs but marked by his own creative spin.
Santa Fe Railyard form & concept
435 S. Guadalupe St. formandconcept.center We Are The Seeds:
A Group Exhibition of Indigenous Arts Aug. 11-Oct. 15
This group exhibition, hosted by form & concept gallery, features more than two dozen Native artists associated with We Are The Seeds, a five-year-old festival celebrating contemporary Indigenous arts and culture and helping participating artists increase their visibility. Work ranges from traditional beading to contemporary painting and wearable art. Exhibiting artists include Loren Aragon (Acoma Pueblo) ACONAV, Peter Boome (Upper Skagit), Roy Tenorio (San Felipe Pueblo) and Tonya June Rafael (Navajo). There’s an opening reception at form & concept on Friday, Aug. 13 from 5-7 p.m., followed by an artist performance on Friday, Aug. 20 from 5-7 p.m. Because of COVID-19, the We Are The Seeds festival has been postponed for 2021; it will relaunch in 2022.
Blue Rain Gallery
544 S. Guadalupe St.; blueraingallery.com Annual Celebration of Native Art Aug. 20 to 31
Each year in August, Blue Rain Gallery highlights its vast cohort of Native artists at its Annual Celebration of Native Art exhibition. Starr Hardridge (Muscogee) draws viewers into a profound reverie with his depictions of Muscogee oral history and culture, painted with a Southeastern Woodlands beadwork aesthetic. Hyrum Joe (Navajo) leaps away from abstract symbolism and chronicles the daily life of the Navajo through a marriage of impressionism and realism. Linking the past with the present, Thomas Breeze Marcus (Pima/Maricopa/Ponca/Otoe) creates bold abstract designs reminiscent of both graffiti art and the geometric, coil-woven baskets important to his Akimel and Tohono O’odham cultural heritage. The gallery also presents a solo exhibition by Preston Singletary (Tlingit). He gives a glassblowing demonstration alongside fellow glass artist Dan Friday (Lummi) from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Aug. 20 and 21. Incorporating designs from his Tlingit heritage, Singletary has revolutionized Indigenous glass art.
Canyon Road and Beyond Steve Elmore Indian Art
839 Paseo de Peralta; elmoreindianart.com Rachel Sahmie: Master Potter Aug. 20 to Sept. 6
A great-great-granddaughter of Nampeyo of Hano, often considered the matriarch of Hopi-Tewa pottery, Rachel Sahmie (Hopi) has been creating pottery for more than 50 years. She carries on the Sikyatki revival movement started by Nampeyo, using ancient techniques, shapes and designs from the Old Hopi pottery and shards found at ruins on First Mesa. Her work is held in museum and private collections around the country. The exhibition
Rachel Sahmie: Master Potter opens on Aug. 20, with a reception with the artist from 4 to 7 p.m., and shows through Labor Day.
Adobe Gallery
221 Canyon Rd.; adobegallery.com Hopi Basketry Plaques from Second and Third Mesas Through Sept. 1
The villages of the Hopi Reservation concentrate around three mesas. Like the pottery on First Mesa, which inspired Nampeyo’s Sikyatki revival movement, the coiled baskets from Second Mesa and the wicker baskets from Third Mesa reflect an intimate connection between humans and the natural world. The baskets, made primarily with plant materials, are used for a wide variety of ceremonial purposes. For example, at Hopi weddings, the bride’s family sometimes gives the groom’s family basket plaques of specific colors and designs. Through Sept. 1, Adobe Gallery presents a selection of Hopi basket plaques from a private collector in California. Unknown weavers created the intricate baskets, which depict animals, the sun, katsinas and more.
Chiaroscuro Contemporary Art
558 Canyon Rd.; chiaroscurosantafe.com Contemporary Native American Group Show Aug. 6 to Sept. 4
Chiaroscuro Contemporary examines and challenges the boundaries of “Native art” at this year’s Contemporary Native American Group
Show. Printmaker and painter Mikayla Patton (Oglala Lakota) delves into matriarchal ideology via Lakota design and geometric forms. Pop artist Neal Ambrose-Smith (Salish/Métis/Cree descent) playfully utilizes printmaking, neon, painting and drawing to explore intense societal issues and powerful emotions. Potters Lisa Holt (Cochiti Pueblo) and Harlan Reano (Kewa) collaborate on innovative sculptures rooted in historic Keresan monos (often humorous clay figurines) and ollas. The show also includes work by Rick Bartow (Wiyot/Yurok), Duane Slick (Meskwaki/ Ho-Chunk), Rose B. Simpson (Santa Clara Pueblo descent), Emmi Whitehorse (Navajo) and others.
Hecho a Mano
830 Canyon Road; hechoamano.org Skye Tafoya: Kanosdaya Through Aug. 23
For this body of work, Rhiannon Skye Tafoya (Eastern Band Cherokee/Santa Clara Pueblo) departed from creating prints by hand and began to work digitally — because she had her arms full with a new baby, her son Kanosdaya, the exhibition’s namesake. Through three-dimensional paper weavings and serigraphs inspired by Eastern Band Cherokee basket weaving, Skye Tafoya examines her connection to the landscape and reflects on her own lived experience. Many of her pieces honor family connections and bring her son to the forefront. The woven and screen-printed works are created with handmade paper, fine art paper and black Tyvek.
Glenn Green Galleries
A 10-minute drive from the Santa Fe Plaza lands you in the quiet, wooded Tesuque Village, home of Glenn Green Galleries. Through Oct. 31, Glenn Green presents works on paper by Melanie Yazzie (Navajo), a printmaker, sculptor, painter and educator currently living in Colorado. Her multilayered monotypes appear otherworldly at first glance. Upon closer inspection, the works tell complex stories, unpacking Native postcolonial dilemmas and regularly bringing Indigenous women to the forefront. Glenn Green Galleries is open by appointment.