Holiday Cheer
Opening Reception: Friday December 1, 2023, 5pm - 7pm
Located at Sawmill District at Hotel Chaco in Albuquerque, New Mexico
As 2023 closes, Gallery Hózhó celebrates this winter season with our Holiday Cheer show featuring paintings, prints, and sculptures by a number of artists in the gallery. Toast the artists at the opening reception on Friday, December 1, 2023, from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm. Holiday Cheer features the work of Chelsea A. Benally, Avis Charley, Bryson Goodrunner, Bob Haozous, Duhon James, Kurt Lomawaima, David A. Naranjo, Darby Raymond-Overstreet, A. Thompson, Vicente Telles, and Peterson Yazzie.
Chelsea Benally Born in 1992 in Crystal, New Mexico, Chelsea Benally earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) from the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with an emphasis in photography and painting. Their studio is in Albuquerque, New Mexico, continuing to explore the roles of women in contemporary culture. Benally serves as assistant director at Gallery Hózhó in Hotel Chaco.
Avis Charley (Spirit Lake Dakota/ Diné) is a visual artist born and raised in Los Angeles, California. She earned her BFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico (2018). She is a ledger artist and painter who creates figurative drawings and paintings exploring the evolving Native American identity from pre-reservation period to the present day, from ancestral homelands to city life.
Bryson Meyers comes from a small reservation in northcentral Montana called Rocky Boy. He moved in with his grandfather and began learning his ways of pow wow and ceremonial life living with his grandfather taught him the ways, language and symbols of the Cree.
Bryson focused on his education and became more independent. He developed a strong focus on pow wow and learning the knowledge of tribes further to the north. He is expanding his knowledge of digital art and printmaking, learning more of what he can do with his art Bryson recently got his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in graphic design the IAIA (Institute of American Indian Art)
Bob Haozous (Warm Springs Chiricahua Apache) tackles ideas about Native identity, cultural appropriation, and the responsibility of artists to address uncomfortable truths about contemporary life in his monumental sculpture, prints, illustrations, and paintings. He received his BFA at the California College of Arts and Crafts, where he learned to work in many media. Bob has major works in front of many southwestern public institutions, including the Institute of American Indian Arts, the Albuquerque Museum, the Heard, the Roundhouse in Santa Fe, and the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture.
Duhon James, I am Water’s Edgeclan, born for the Bitter Water Clan, from Ganado, AZ. In Spring 2014, I graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Arts from the Institute of American Indian Arts.
Kurt Lomawaima Currently residing on the Hopi Reservation in Arizona, Kurt has been honing his skills as an artist in various mediums for several years. His time attending the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe has encouraged Kurt’s confidence of applying his natural talents to whichever art form embraces his ideas.Having grown up in the village of Mishungnovi on Second Mesa, Kurt’s art reflects his Hopi upbringing with specks of Western abstract mannerisms. Utilizing acrylic and airbrush techniques, he enjoys a contrast of bright and natural colors to explore the depths of Hopi lifeways and beliefs.
David Naranjo from the Pueblos of Santa Clara, San Juan, and Cochiti reinterprets historic pottery in two dimensions, expressing cultural symbolism through hardline abstraction. Since receiving his BFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts, he incorporates elements from Tewa patterns and designs as paintings and scarves, often executed in tactile materials such as silk and micaceous paint. For Naranjo, “Symbols and iconography depicted on pottery and embroidery are not only for ornate decorative purposes, but carry great symbolic significance and serve as visual representations of the landscape, natural world, and, if used properly, for prayer.”
Darby Raymond-Overstreet is an award winning digital artist and printmaker. Born in Tuba City Arizona, and raised in Flagstaff Arizona, she is a proud member of the Navajo Nation. She received her B.A. in Psychology and Studio Art and graduated with Honors from Dartmouth College in 2016. She currently resides in Chimayó, NM and through her work she studies, works with and creates Navajo/Diné pattern designs that materialize through portraits, landscapes, and abstract forms. Her work is heavily inspired by and derived from Traditional Diné/Navajo textiles, with particular interestin pieces woven in the late1800's-1950's
Noted santero and retablo carver Vicente Telles (he/him) offers a contemporary approach to traditional Hispanic arts. Using the natural pigments created from clays and minerals on homemade gesso on boards he shapes himself, the artist brings a historic practice into the present day. His interpretations of Catholic and cultural iconography show his social commentary about issues such as immigration and the border.
A. Thompson (ATA) lives and works in Lukachukai, Arizona. Born and raised on the Navajo Nation, the youngest of four siblings, Thompson left the reservation at the age of 17. Her degree is in Health Care Administration but she discovered painting in 2010. Since then, Thompson has studied abstract art on her own, favoring work by Picasso, Kandinsky, Banksy, Matisse, and Voka. She says, “I am just an individual with a sponge, a bucket of water, a syringe, a spoon, a spray bottle, with bad eyesight. . . . I choose to show what is on my mind and in my heart.”
Peterson Yazzie is a Contemporary Navajo artist, illustrator, and educator from Greasewood Springs, Arizona.
The Navajo culture and personal experiences are the foundation of Yazzie’s work. Yazzie’s painting literally starts with a splash of paint sparked by an idea, the rest is completed with intuition and experimentation. Yazzie also carves what he has coined as “Yei wall sculptures”. The wall sculptures are carved from wood, painted, and adorned with natural exotic (legal) feathers.
Yazzie has won numerous awards from prestigious art shows such as Heard Museum, Santa Fe Indian Market, Arizona State Museum, Museum of Northern Arizona, and The Autry Museum of the American West among others. Yazzie also illustrated the children’s book titled “The Hogan that great grandfather built” with Salina Bookshelf of Flagstaff, AZ. Yazzie has been awarded art fellowships from Vermont Studio Center, SWAIA, Wheelwright Museum (Goodman Fellowship), and the Heard Museum.
Peterson received an Associate of Fine Arts (2002) and a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree (2004) from the Institute of American Indian Arts, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Peterson furthered his education by earning a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 2008. Peterson is currently a full-time art faculty at Northland Pioneer College in Holbrook, Arizona since Fall 2011.