Summoning webs of COLOR
Diné artist Patrick Dean Hubbell explores reclamation
The draped canvases of Patrick Dean Hubbell echo the stories of Diné culture woven with gestural abstraction. Hubbell’s work is on exhibit in “Patrick Dean Hubbell: A New Day” at Gerald Peters Contemporary in Santa Fe. He’s fresh from earning his masters degree in fine arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
The artist grew up on a small farm in the Navajo Nation between Window Rock, Arizona, and Navajo, New Mexico. Studio classes at Arizona State University ignited his passion for mark-making after he shuffled through various majors.
“I was able to focus in that atmosphere,” Hubbell said. “I went with it and never looked back.”
Hubbell built his initial painting approach on gestural abstraction. He incorporated contemporary Western aesthetics and ideologies into large-scale canvases using expressive brushwork and Navajo geometric designs.
Next, Hubbell reconstructed the canvas in reference to textiles, shawls, blankets and medicine bags.
In 2015-16, he traveled across the Navajo Nation collecting sandstone, sediment and other natural minerals to create natural pigments to add to his paintings.
His new works continue this exploration with suspended canvas, adding earth pigments, along with oils and acrylics. The works summon webs of color interrupted by stylized geometric patterns.
In “Primary Star Movement,” Hubbell scatters crosses across the canvas topped by black-andwhite peaks, and dollops of red, yellow and blue.
“That piece is based off the correlation of primary colors being the basis of color theory, and going back to the black and white of the stars,” Hubbell said in a telephone interview from Window Rock. “Some of our
stories are situated between light and dark or black and white. Some of our teachings are situated with creation stories and colors that belong to spiritual entities.”
The piece nearly projects a life of its own.
“The stars; the way they are situated they have a life within them,” Hubbell said. “They have a connection to the sky and also the movement within them. Through different creation stories, they were placed there.”
The flag-like “The Stars Fall
in the Distance” falls from a single stretcher bar.
“There is just a sense of the organic feel of not being stretched around stretcher bars; of having it breathe,” Hubbell said.
“Your Early Morning Light” shares a similar theme as it captures the stories and songs of his culture through the stars across a red-striped background.
“That one is referencing the morning dawn,” Hubbell said. “There’s a story within Navajo culture that the first light over the horizon carries a special blessing. The teaching is to wake up before dawn to be ready for that first light that shines across the landscape.”
The recent move to Chicago to study induced a bit of culture shock, although Hubbell has done his share of traveling.
“Being raised out here and going to the big city – I had never even been to Chicago before,” he said. “Access to nature is probably the biggest culture shock to me; to be able to have access to open space. I had a really good experience as far as the school, the faculty and my colleagues.”
His future explorations will center on the exploitation of Navajo culture through the mass manufacturing of tourist trinkets. Hubbell began collecting such fake items as rugs, blankets and dream catchers from truck stops along New Mexico’s Interstate 40.
“I began to explore the idea of reclamation,” Hubbell said. “The vast majority of these pieces are imitative and exploitative.”
Now that he is back home, Hubbell is exploring future artistic residencies and fellowships.