Emmi Whitehorse

Born 1957 in Crownpoint, New Mexico, Emmi Whitehorse is an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation. Whitehorse received a BA with a Major in Painting from the University of New Mexico in 1980, and an MA with a Major in Printmaking and a Minor in Art History in 1982, also from her alma mater.

“My paintings tell the story of knowing land over time—of being completely, microcosmically within a place,” says Whitehorse of her enigmatic compositions. For over 40 years, the unique landscape of the Southwest has been a prevailing source of inspiration for the artist. Her works on paper and canvas often situate abstract, gestural marks amidst vaporous fields of color. The intimate and intuitive nature of the artist’s organic forms are tethered to complex and constantly changing geographies and environments. Deliberately meditative and slow, these paintings register fleeting sensory perceptions and subtle shifts in light, space, and color—the central axes around which the artist’s work has evolved. Throughout her career, Whitehorse’s longstanding commitment to beauty and peace has its origins in the Navajo philosophy Hózhó, which seeks to achieve a harmonious balance of life, mind, and body with nature.

Whitehorse’s work has been the subject of dozens of museum and gallery presentations since 1979. Her solo exhibitions have been held at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Colorado (2006); Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska (2001); Tucson Museum of Art, Arizona (1997); and The Wheelwright Museum, Santa Fe, New Mexico (1991). She has participated in group exhibitions nationally and internationally, including La Biennale di Venezia: Stranieri Ovunque – Strangers Everywhere (2024), The Land Carries Our Ancestors: Contemporary Art by Native Americans, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. (2023–2024); Making Knowing: Craft in Art, 1950–2019, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2019–2022); Celebrating Diversities in Art, Springfield Art Museum, Massachusetts (2012); Modern Times – Kunst der Indianischen Moderne und Postmoderne, Galerieverein Leonberg, Germany (2011); Into the Void: Abstract Art, Autry Museum of the American West, Los Angeles, California (2010); Unlimited Boundaries: Dichotomy of Place in Contemporary Native American Art, Albuquerque Museum of Art, New Mexico (2007); Off The Map, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, New York, New York (2007); and Contemporary Art in New Mexico, SITE Santa Fe, New Mexico (1996).

Her work is held in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas; Denver Art Museum, Colorado; Eiteljorg Museum, Indianapolis, Indiana; Heard Museum, Phoenix, Arizona; Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey; Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico; Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts; Tucson Museum of Art, Arizona; Westfalisches Museum, Munster, Germany; The Wheelwright Museum, Santa Fe, New Mexico; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York, among many others.