Artist Talk with Dyani White Hawk
MacArthur Fellow. Contemporary Lakota artist. Visionary.
Dyani White Hawk brings her groundbreaking practice—where traditional Lakota design meets bold abstract painting—into conversation with A Nation of Artists, exploring how Indigenous artists have always been essential to the American story, even when institutions failed to recognize them.
White Hawk's monumental works challenge viewers to reconsider what American art means. By weaving together star quilts, geometric abstraction, and materials that carry cultural memory, she creates a visual language that honors ancestral knowledge while pushing contemporary art forward. Her work asks essential questions: Whose traditions count as "American"? How do artists maintain cultural continuity while innovating fearlessly? What happens when we finally tell the full story of American creativity?
This conversation, moderated by scholar and curator Leah Triplett, brings together themes of tradition, continuity, and innovation in Indigenous art—illuminating how Native artists have shaped American visual culture for centuries, often without credit or recognition.
In collaboration with the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Artists on Art lecture series, this event celebrates how contemporary artists expand our understanding of American art history by insisting we look deeper, question assumptions, and make space for voices that have always been here.
This program is offered in a hybrid format—attend in person at PAFA or watch the live stream on YouTube. A link to the livestream will be emailed to all registrants by 11:30 AM on the day of the event. A recording of the program will be shared with registrants following the event.
She Gives (Quiet Strength VII) (2020)
Acrylic on canvas, 84 x 120 in.
Museum Purchase
RELATIVE (2023)
Vinyl on mirror glass panels, 8-channel video, color, 6 minute loop, sound composition, stereo, 20-minute loop
9 x 16 ft.
Museum Commission and Purchase
About Dyani White Hawk
Dyani White Hawk (Sičáŋǧu Lakota) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
White Hawk earned a MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2011) and BFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico (2008). She served as Gallery Director and Curator for the All My Relations Gallery in Minneapolis from 2011-2015.
Support for White Hawk’s work has included the 2024 Guggenheim Fellowship, 2024 Creative Capital grant, 2023 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, 2021 Anonymous Was a Woman Award, Academy of Arts and Letters Award, 2021 and 2013 McKnight Foundation Fellowship, 2020 Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation Minnesota Art Prize, 2019 United States Artists Fellowship in Visual Art, Eiteljorg Fellowship for Contemporary Art, Jerome Hill Artists Fellowship, Forecast for Public Art Mid-Career Development Grant, 2018 Nancy Graves Grant for Visual Artists, 2017 and 2015 Native Arts and Cultures Foundation Fellowships and 2014 Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant. She has participated in residencies in Australia, Russia, and Germany.
Her work is in the collections of the Guggenheim Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Walker Art Center, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Museum, Denver Art Museum, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, Tweed Museum of Art, IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Akta Lakota Museum among other public and private collections.
She is represented by Bockley Gallery in Minneapolis and Alexander Gray Associates in New York.
Photograph by Jaida Grey Eagle.
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