BIOGRAPHY, EXHIBITIONS AND ARTIST STATEMENT

EDUCATION:

1980 B.A., University of New Mexico, Major in Painting
1982 M.A., University of New Mexico, Major in Printmaking, Minor in Art History

SELECTED SOLO MUSEUM EXHIBITIONS:

2006 Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Boulder, CO
2004-05 "Soul Weaving," KC Jewish Museum, Overland Park, KS
2001 Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, NE
1997 Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ
1993 Millicent Rogers Museum, Taos, NM
1991 "Neeznáá" The Wheelwright Museum, Santa Fe, NM
1988 Yuma Art Center, Yuma, AZ 1982 Sun Valley Center for Arts & Humanities, Sun Valley, ID

GROUP MUSEUM EXHIBITIONS

2008-2009 "Maverick Art" Autry Museum of the American West, Los Angeles, CA
2008 "Common Ground: Art in New Mexico" Albuquerque Museum of Art,
Albuquerque, NM
2007 "Unlimited Boundaries: Dichotomy of Place in Contemporary Native
American Art" Albuquerque Museum of Art, Albuquerque, NM
2007 "Off The Map" Smithsonian National Museum of the
American Indian, New York, NY
2005 "Rolling Thunder: Art from the Plains" Foothills Art Center, Golden, CO
2004 "Expanded Visions: Four Woman Artists print the American West",
Autry Museum, Los Angeles, California
2003-04 "Uncommon Legacies: Native American Art from the Peabody
Essex Museum". Stanford University, Stanford, CA
Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH.
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Richmond, VA.
Peabody Essex Museum,. Salem, MA
2002-05 "New Classics" Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO
2002 "Common Ground: Contemporary Native American Art from the
TMA Permanent Collection and Private Collections"
Tucson Museum of Art. Tucson, AZ
"Western Visions: Pop, Perspective and Politics" Center for the
Visual Arts,Metropolitan State College of Denver.
2001- "Multiple Impressions: Native American Artist and the Print"
traveling exhibition from the Tamarind Institute, Albuquerque, NM
2000 "New Art of the West 7", Eiteljorg Museum, Indianapolis, IN
"New Prints 2001" International Print Center NY, NY
1999- "Art in 2 Worlds: the Native American Fine Arts Invitational
1983-1997 "Heard Museum, traveling exhibition, Phoenix, AZ
"Storylines", Colorado University Art Galleries, University of Colorado, Boulder.
"Taos, Albuquerque, Santa Fe", Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Cedar Rapids, IA
"Nourishing Hearts, Creative Hands", Hampton University Museum,
Hampton, VA
Urban Institute of Contemporary Arts, Grand Rapids, IA
1998 Group Show, Margo Jacobsen Gallery, Portland, OR
1997 "Contemporary New Mexico Artists: Sketches Schemas",
Site Santa Fe, Santa Fe, New Mexico
1996-97 "Contemporary Art in New Mexico", SITE Santa Fe, NM
1996 "New Art of the West 5", Eiteljorg Museum, Indianapolis, IN
1995 Westtfalisches Museum, Munster, Germany
1994 American Academy of Arts and Letters, Purchase Exhibition, NY, NY
1993 "Indianer Nord-Amerikas: Kunst und Mythos",
Internationale Tage, Ingelheim, Germany.
"Of Paper and Glass", Millicent Rogers Museum, Taos, NM
1991 "Presswork, The Art of Women Printmakers" National Museum of
Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C. (traveling show)
1990 "Primavera" Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ.
Centro Cultural de la Raza, Balboa Park, San Diego, CA
1989 "Six from Santa Fe", Gibbs Museum of Art, Charleston, SC
1988 "Mask", The Old Pueblo Museum, Tucson, AZ
1987 Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, IN.
1985 "Eight Artists", The Southwest Museum, Los Angeles, CA
"Women of the American West", Bruce Museum, Greenwich, CT
1984 "She Holds Her Own", The Green County Council on the Arts, Catskill, NY
"Contemporary Native American Art Exhibition", OK State University.
Stillwater, OK.
1982 "Modern Native American Abstraction", The Philadelphia Art Alliance Gallery,
Philadelphia, PA. (traveling show)
1981 "Confluences of Configuration and Change", Nelson Gallery,
University of CA, Davis, CA
Museum of the Southwest, Midland, TX
The A.I.C.H. Gallery, NY, NY
The Brunnier Gallery, Iowa State University, Dubuque, IA
"Grey Canyon Group", The Heard Museum, Phoenix, AZ
"Works on Paper", University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM
(traveling show)
1980 "Grey Canyon Group", University of ND, Grand Forks, SD
The Southern Plains Museum, Anadarko, OK
The Sioux Land Heritage Museum, Sioux Falls, SD
Galleria de Cavalina, Venice, Italy
Wheelwright Museum, Santa Fe, NM (traveling show)
1979 "Grey Canyon Group", Gallery Upstairs, Berkeley, CA
Downtown Center for the Arts, Albuquerque, NM
(traveling show)

SELECTED SOLO GALLERY EXHIBITIONS (NORTH AMERICA)

2004 Vanier Gallery, Tucson, AZ
2002 LewAllen Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM
Mainsite Gallery, Norman, OK
Vanier Gallery, Tucson, AZ
2001 LewAllen Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM
Jan Cicero Gallery, Chicago, IL
1999 Jan Cicero Gallery, Chicago, IL
Vanier Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ
"New Mexico Visions", Margo Jacobsen Gallery, Portland, OR
LewAllen Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM
Mainsite Gallery, Norman, OK
LewAllen Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM
1998 LewAllen Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM
1997 Cline LewAllen Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM
1996 Cicero Gallery, Chicago, IL
Jan Weiner Gallery, Kansas City, KS
Jan Maiden Gallery, Columbus, OH
Bentley Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ
1995 Jan Maiden Gallery, Columbus, OH
1994 Horwitch LewAllen Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
Bentley Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ
1993 Bentley Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ
LewAllen Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
1992 Jan Cicero Gallery, Chicago, IL
Will Thompson Gallery, Telluride, CO
The Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, GA
1991 LewAllen/Butler Fine Art, Santa Fe, NM (also 89, 88, 87)
Thomas Riley Gallery, Chicago, IL
1990 Marilyn Butler Fine Art, Scottsdale, AZ (also 85, 87, 89)
1984 Art Resources, Denver, CO
A.I.C.A. Gallery, San Francisco, CA (also 1985)

SELECTED SOLO GALLERY EXHIBITIONS (EUROPE)

1995 Homme Art, Antwerp, Belgium
1993 Hartje Gallery, Frankfurt, Germany (also, 91, 90, 87)
1991 Karin Iserhagen Galerie, Basel, Switzerland
1984 Akmak Gallery, West Berlin, Germany
1980 Galleria del Cavallino, Venice, Italy

SELECTED GROUP GALLERY EXHIBITIONS

2008 "Recommence" Chiaroscuro Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
2008 "Without Limits" Chiaroscuro Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
2005 "Myth and Meta-language" LewAllen Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM
2003 "Native Inspirations" LewAllen Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM
2002 "Summer Group Show", Jan Cicero Gallery, Chicago, IL
"Summer Group Show", LewAllen Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM
2001 "Summer Group Show", Jan Cicero Gallery, Chicago, IL
2000 "30 Years of Collecting 20th Century Art by Women"
Spaightwood Gallery, Madison, WI
"Earthly Visions, Landscape: Real and Imagined,"
Jan Cicero Gallery, Chicago, IL
1999 "Mixed Blessings", Amerika Haus, Frankfurt, Germany
1995-6 "Native Streams", touring exhibition,
Jan Cicero Gallery (Chicago)
Turman Art Gallery (Indiana)
Holter Art Museum (Montana)
Southern Ohio Museum (Ohio)
South Bend Regional Art Museum (Indiana)
Emerson Art Center, (Indiana).
1994 "Self Portrait," group show, David Rettig Fine Art,
Santa Fe, NM
Bentley Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ
1992 New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM
1988 Ann Reed Gallery, Sun Valley, ID
1987 Read Stremmel Gallery, San Antonio, TX
1985 "Visage Transcended", A.I.C.A.,
San Francisco, CA (traveling show)
"Women of Sweetgrass, Sage and Cedar:, A.I.C.H. Gallery,
NY, NY (traveling show)
"Artists Under Thirty," The Silvermine Guild, New Canaan, CT
1984 Marilyn Butler Fine Art, Santa Fe, N.M. and Scottsdale, AZ.
1983 "The Southwest Scene," The Brentwood Gallery, St. Louis, MO.
"Native Artists of the Eighties", The Sacred Circle Gallery, Seattle, WA
1982 "Taos to Tucson", The Foundations Gallery, NY, NY
"Native Woman Artists," The A.I.C.H. Gallery, NY, NY

OTHER PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITY

2000 "Lasting Impressions", fundraising portfolio for the College of Fine Arts, University of Arizona, Tucson
1996 Project Coordinator, University of New Mexico at Gallup, New Mexico
1995 "Seinsichten Aus Welten", 2nd Internationales Künstelerpleinair. Artists exchange, Rostock, Germany.

ARTIST STATEMENT

As an artist I have intentionally avoided politically oriented subject matter and angst-ridden or physical wrestling with the act of painting itself. To make art, the act of making art must stay true to a harmonious balance of beauty, nature, humanity and the whole universe. This is in accordance with Navajo philosophy. I have chosen to focus on nature, on landscape.

My paintings tell the story of knowing land over time - of being completely, microcosmically within a place. I am defining a particular space, describing a particular place. They are purposefully meditative and mean to be seen slowly. The intricate language of symbols refer to specific plants, people and experiences.

These images float in and out of awareness. My childhood was spent playing and tending sheep in a landscape that seemed magical and endless. I hope one notices the paintings reflect these sensory impressions of long days passed amid the land's vastness - days spent noticing the subtle fluctuations of light, the perpetual changes in color and the fleeting shift of elements from prominence one moment to obscurity the next. This knowledge has thoroughly shaped my frame of mind.

Beginning in 1999, the paintings became more non-referential in imagery, instead relying more heavily on pure sensory response. The new works are about water, about a sense of surfacing from the water, about capturing an elusive ethereal vapor, about capturing liquid mass. Red is the predominant color in much of this work, and while red is not a color usually associated with water, it is in the region where I live and so I use this color. Over time sharp geometric shapes have given way to imagery of animals and birds to a personal alphabet-like cipher or code that has entered the picture plane, but the focus remains the landscape, which has been expanded through my travels here and abroad.

My work is about and has always been about land, about being aware of our surroundings and appreciating the beauty of nature. I am concerned that we are no longer aware of those. The calm and beauty that is in my work I hope serves as a reminder of what is underfoot, of the exchange we make with nature. Light, space and color are the axis around which my work evolves.

-Emmi Whitehorse

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