Original Painting “Spirits above Us” [SOLD]

Milland Lomakema (1941-   ) Dawakema was a member of the Artist Hopid, a group organized in 1973 by Hopi artists Michael Kabotie, Terrance Talaswaima, and Neil David, Sr.  The objectives of the group were to use Hopi art to instill pride and identity, to educate the world to the aesthetic and cultural values of the Hopi, to develop new ideas in Hopi art, to control the aesthetic for Hopi art, and to document Hopi history through the visual arts.  

Lomakema is a self-taught artist with no formal training in the arts although he attended a number of schools over the years.  In the late 1950s, he traveled with an education tour group throughout the east coast of the United States and Canada.  In the mid-1960s, he worked with a detective agency in Phoenix, then he joined the Hopi police force in 1968, during which time he devoted most of his spare time to painting.  He won first place in the Heard Museum’s National Indian Art Show in 1968 for one of his paintings.  Then in 1969, he won additional prizes for his art and more prizes in 1970 and later.

This painting, “Spirits above Us,” is typical of his art style—modernist.  I will not attempt to interpret the painting as only the artist knows the meaning.  The title gives us an idea of the meaning as it refers to the spirits above.  There are corn plants, a very important crop to the Hopi, and we see the night sky with the moon, stars and a comet.  It is signed in lower right Dawakema and dated with what appears to be 1976.

Condition:  original condition

Provenance: from the collection of a family from California

Recommended Reading: Hopi Painting: the World of the Hopis by Patricia Janis Broder. This book is currently not available from Adobe Gallery.