Native American artists are experiencing unprecedented recognition in the mainstream art world, breaking through centuries of marginalization that confined Indigenous art to reservations, trading posts, and specialized markets. For Native American Heritage Month, a comprehensive look at 25 Native American, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian artists reveals the breadth of artistic innovation spanning multiple generations and mediums, from foundational pottery to contemporary Ravenstail weaving.
For generations, Native art existed in isolation from major urban centers like New York City, San Francisco, Tulsa, and Phoenix, with virtually no dedicated Indigenous commercial galleries in areas with significant Native populations. Today, however, these artists are finding their way into major galleries and institutions from Miami to New York to Venice, fundamentally changing the landscape of contemporary art.
Among the featured artists, Tlingit weaver Sydney Akagi employs traditional Ravenstail and Chilkat techniques to create signature masks, tunics, and mantles. Born in Southeast Alaska in 1989 and an enrolled member of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, Akagi learned from her mentor Lily Hope and created her first wall hanging in 2018. Her "Ceremonial Woven Tunic, Ravenstail and Chilkat" demonstrates how traditional formline motifs historically declared secular and social standing within tribes while commemorating personal life events.
The late Bernice Akamine (1949-2024), a Native Hawaiian sculptor and installation artist from Honolulu, used paper, glass, and metal to critique ongoing American colonial impact on Hawaii. Her 87-sculpture installation "Kalo" at the 2019 Hawaiian Biennial honored Hui Aloha Āina, an organization supporting Hawaiian sovereignty. Her politically charged work "Papahanaumokua" (2018) featured glass-tipped bullet casings filled with Hawaiian earth pigments, referencing the 2018 false missile threat alert.
Fourth-generation Navajo weaver Melissa Cody connects traditional weaving to video game aesthetics, with brightly colored works resembling games like Mario Kart and Pac-Man. Born in 1983, Cody explains that both weaving and gaming require singular focus and offer escape from reservation monotony. Her incorporation of electronic game glitches reflects her philosophy that "separation of time and space happen; I like being able to kind of make them intentional."
Shinnecock photographer Jeremy Dennis, based on his Long Island reservation, stages revenge fantasies in his imagery. His photo series "Nothing Happened Here" (2016-2017) depicts modern white Americans struck by arrows, exploring the paradox of settler violence and nonviolent ideologies. His four-minute film "Hearthless" draws parallels between Greek epic protagonists and Native peoples' othering experience.
Mississippi Choctaw and Cherokee artist Jeffrey Gibson made history in 2024 as the first Native American to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale. His immersive installation "Power Full Because We're Different" at MASS MoCA explores gender role fluidity in Native societies through ribbon-embroidered fabrics, metallic coils, and ethereal chiffon. His Metropolitan Museum façade sculptures honor deer, coyote, squirrel, and hawk, inviting viewers to understand these beings' insights.
Maria Martinez (1887-1980), known as the matriarch of Native American pottery, transformed Indigenous ceramics from craft into fine art through her black-on-black pottery technique. Working with her husband Julian Martinez from San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico, she achieved widespread art world recognition by studying ancient pottery shards and reinventing historic techniques when earthenware was being abandoned for European materials.
Cree artist Kent Monkman injects his gender-fluid alter ego Miss Chief Eagle Testickle into paintings referencing Hudson River School landscapes and traditional Western tableaux. Miss Chief's presence in monumental paintings, often in suggestive attire and vertiginous heels, upends colonial gender notions and interrupts codified narratives. His current Montreal Museum of Fine Arts retrospective excavates suppressed colonial histories.
Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (1940-2025), an enrolled member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation, was a groundbreaking visual artist, curator, and activist who worked to break the "buckskin ceiling." Her 50-year oeuvre combined political humor with poeticism across painting, collage, drawing, printmaking, and sculpture, asserting sovereignty in representing tribes past, present, and future.
Rose B. Simpson from Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico, innovates at the intersection of red clay pottery and figurative sculpture, pushing Pueblo art boundaries. Coming from a matriarchy of ceramicists, she chose the University of New Mexico over Dartmouth to maintain formative land connections. Her work includes ceramic and metal sculptures, installations, and performance pieces.
Painter Kay WalkingStick, a Cherokee Nation citizen featured at the 2024 Venice Biennale, creates landscape paintings inscribed with Indigenous motifs, suggesting pre-contact vantage points. She emphasizes that American landscapes depicted as empty by 19th-century white artists were actually populated, stating, "I think of my paintings as a reminder that we are all living on Indian Territory."
These artists represent a broader spectrum of innovation, including filmmaker Sky Hopinka's language reclamation work, Dyani White Hawk's application of Lakota traditions to critique white artistic hierarchy, and Emmi Whitehorse's layered abstractions influenced by traditional ecological worldviews. Their collective work shatters conventional fine art ideas while honoring historical techniques and cultural knowledge, underscoring Indigenous artists' vital contributions to contemporary art and the ongoing need to center their voices in mainstream art discourse.
