Untitled Abstract Hopi Painting by Lomawywesa [SOLD]

Michael Kabotie (1942 - 2009) Lomawywesa spent his life surrounded by great artists.  His father was Fred Kabotie, who was a very influential painter and a Guggenheim fellow.  During his junior year of high school, Kabotie spent a summer at the University of Arizona’s Southwest Indian Art Project with Fritz Scholder, Helen Hardin, Charles Loloma, and Joe Herrera. Like his father, Kabotie was multi talented—he was a painter, poet, jeweler, lecturer and silversmith.

In the early 1970s Kabotie founded a collective called the Artist Hopid with artists Michael Kabotie, Terrance Talaswaima, Milland Lomakema, Delbridge Honanie and Neil David, Sr. Their goal was to breathe new life into traditional Hopi Pueblo art forms.  Their reinterpretations of traditional forms and designs are, today, well-regarded and highly collectible. These artists were forward-thinking individuals whose love for their culture informed even their more abstract works.  Kabotie himself summarized the Artist Hopid movement in Patricia Janis Broder’s Hopi Painting The World of the Hopis: “We, the Hopis, have a lot to offer from a spiritual standpoint and as a living force.  We are hoping that from the presentation of our traditions and from the interpretations of the Hopi way in our art and paintings, a new direction can come for American spirituality.”

With this untitled painting, which is signed Lomawywesa and dated 1991, Kabotie provides an illustration of his greatest strength as a painter: creating vibrant, colorful abstract works that are rich in Hopi symbology.  It’s a playful image, full of motion and bright colors, containing a wealth of symbols and designs: rain clouds, arrows, plants, animals, and other designs that may be clan symbols or may just be the artist’s own creations. All of these symbols are in motion, swirling around and towards the center of the piece. Two large blue arrows curve in towards the center, too, each containing a circular design.  Concentrated around each of these circles are seas of multicolored dots. This painting will most certainly be admired by collectors who are well-versed in the intricacies of Hopi cosmology, but it can also be appreciated by those who are not. It’s a vibrant and beautiful work by a historically significant artist.

Condition: this Untitled Abstract Hopi Painting by Lomawywesa is in excellent condition

Provenance: from the large collection of a Santa Fe resident who is downsizing

Recommended Reading:  Michael’s Journey: The Mythic Art of Michael Kabotie by Brigitte and Dietmar Behnke