Show Preview | Tony Abeyta

Featuring some 16 oil paintings and works on paper, the newest exhibition for renowned Diné (Navajo) artist Tony Abeyta shares his vibrant, ever-evolving explorations and celebrations of Southwestern and Western landscapes and the deep meanings he finds within them. The artist will be present to greet guests at the opening reception on August 15 from 5 to 7 p.m. at The Owings Gallery’s Palace Avenue location in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Abeyta has long been respected for the power his scenes possess not only to convey the geology, wildlife, weather and people of the Southwest and West, but also to magically express the natural and spiritual forces thrumming within them. “Painting enables me to make works of art that are experiential, expressing my personal, spiritual connection to everything and everybody around me,” he says.

This new show demonstrates the continuing evolution of explorations that began for Abeyta during the pandemic years, when he produced “a series of paintings that looked at the landscape as a place of sanctuary,” he says. While just as dynamic and beautiful, many of his latest works, by contrast, appear more tumultuous in their compositions and the natural places and forces they represent, including tree-fringed rugged peaks engulfed in jagged flames and billowing smoke, as depicted in CALIFORNIA CANYON WILDFIRE, and what he describes as “huge, foreboding storms, beautiful but very threatening” in PARALLEL WORLDS.

“Through works of art that feel experiential, it’s my highly personal way of addressing the unpredictability of the world we’re living in, the climate of our current existence,” he says. Yet, he also hastens to point out that not all the scenes on view appear quite so apocalyptic. “Four or five of the paintings,” he notes, “are just waterfalls from a trip I made last summer to Yosemite.”

In addition to his oil on canvas landscapes, Abeyta is also debuting three or four monochromatic works in a style and medium he displayed almost 20 years ago in a large-scale mural at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, works that also excited collectors’ attention when he displayed similar pieces in 2022 as part of a group show with his father, Narciso, and his sisters, Pablita and Elizabeth, at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe. Done using charcoal and ink wash on archival Japanese Hiromi paper mounted on canvas, pieces like the triptych titled ENTERING THE SACRED may appear abstract at first glance. On closer inspection, however, the intricate drawings abound with biomorphic forms such as antlers, branches, leaves, feathers, and shells as well as Native symbols and stylized representations of thunderbirds, a coyote, a wolf and other animals.

“We’re so excited to have them in this show,” says The Owings Gallery director Laura Widmar. “I don’t know of anyone else who’s doing work quite like this.” And the artist himself shares her enthusiasm. “These works are taking me to different places,” Abeyta says. “And everything I’m learning from them informs my other work.” —Norman Kolpas

contact information(505) 982-6244owingsgallery.com

This story appeared in the August/September 2025 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Subscribe today to read every issue in its entirety.

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