Born and raised on the Navajo reservation in northwestern New Mexico, Emmi Whitehorse, in her abstract paintings, elegantly fuses the physical and metaphysical, natural and cultural, modern and traditional. Trained in the techniques of modern painting, she consistently and effortlessly infuses each piece in subject matter drawn from her own native heritage, without watering down either. 

Whitehorse attended the University of New Mexico, where in 1980 she attained a B.A. in painting and in 1982 an M.A. in printmaking. After several, self-described “oppressive,” years living on the East Coast, during which she struggled to find her own unique niche as an artist, she returned to her native New Mexico. 

Her work is in many public collections, the Denver Art Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, Tucson Museum of Art, Arizona State University, and the Wheelwright Museum in Santa Fe. Internationally her work has been displayed at museums in Belgium, Germany and Italy and nationally at Site Santa Fe, the Denver Art Museum, the Heard Museum, National Museum of Women in the Arts and the Joslyn Art Museum.

Click here for information about “Equal Dignity”, an original lithograph by Emmi Whitehorse created in collaboration with master printer
Bud Shark of Shark’s Ink. All proceeds from the sale of this print support the exhibitions and programs at BMoCA.