 |
About the artist - Tony Abeyta
Navajo artist Tony Abeyta has worked in many media to create paintings using sand, layers of oil paints, encaustic wax and collage elements that include earth pigments, bronze and copper as well as gold leafing. However, this summer Abeyta will work with yet another media – charcoal and ink washes – to produce a drawing installation for his new exhibition Underworlderness. Abeyta plans to “abstractly render the Navajo underworld, draw the realm we live in today and draw our relationship to the cosmos.”
The exhibition will also differ from his usual work in that Abeyta will draw and paint directly on the gallery wall to render the large – as large as 10 feet high – work of art. While he is painting, Abeyta’s 17-year-old son Gabriel will document his work on video and then create a short film utilizing reverse time-lapsed footage to reduce as much as four to six hours of painting to three minutes of video. Gabriel Abeyta will also incorporate original music into the video. Once completed, the video will be shown on several monitors in the gallery.
Tony Abeyta has studied painting extensively, attending Santa Fe’s Institute of American Indian Art, Maryland Institute’s College of Art in Baltimore, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (for which he received a Ford Foundation Scholarship) and New York University. Most recently, Abeyta’s work was influenced by his travels to Europe, where he spent considerable time in Florence, Italy. While in Europe, he had the opportunity to see and study paintings by masters including large-scale works such as Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica.”
In his early paintings, Abeyta used brilliant colors to depict magical journeys into Diné culture and Native spirituality. By 2002, his palette had changed to more subtle and somber earth tones. His black-and-white charcoal and ink drawings featured in Underworlderness are yet another provocative exploration by this creative artist. In the drawings and the mural, Abeyta will explore themes of plant life – seeds emerging from the ground – and abstractions of animals.
Exhibit Videography - Gabriel Abeyta
At age 17, Gabriel Steven Mozart Abeyta, Navajo/Taos Pueblo, has already led an interesting and creative life. Abeyta, son of Navajo painter Tony Abeyta, has combined a traditional mindset with a contemporary perspective acquired from living in many extraordinary places to form an early foundation for his artistic career. He credits much of his unique, contemporary style to dyslexia, which has made academic studies difficult but has forced him to see the world in a different light.
Abeyta’s early academic years were spent at Taos Pueblo schools—first the day school, then continued studies at the Yaxche Learning Center, a private school focusing on individual growth and creativity.
During early adolescence, he engaged in his traditional manhood training at Taos Pueblo. He moved with his family to Venice, Italy, and studied at Instituto Zambler in Mestre. During visits to the Venice Biennale, he discovered his interests in film and music. He has said of this experience, “I remember the impact of a video installation by director Chris Cunningham and another by Bill Viola. They were two figures along with Mathew Barney who helped to set the stage for my interest in films. I saw the potential for film to be art in itself.” He was inspired to produce hundreds of short films that contain limited narrative and music and has worked with good friend and musician
Andrew Pink in London on several film soundtracks. He also forms intermittent bands with fellow artists and musicians. Abeyta will graduate from the Chicago Academy for the Arts in 2009 and continue his studies at college, where he plans to focus on film while continuing his interest in music. He is constantly creating and can be found at any given moment working on a new short, composing music -- some for soundtrack to his films -- or just playing his guitar and keyboard
| Contact us | | Press room | | ||
| Copyright © 2008 heard Museum. | |||
|
Heard Museum On display at the |
