Tony Abeyta

Tony Abeyta (born 1965 in Gallup, New Mexico) is a Diné (Navajo) painter whose large-scale works have established him as one of the most significant contemporary Native American artists working today. He studied at the Rhode Island School of Design and later in Rome on a scholarship, returning to the Southwest where he built a studio practice in Santa Fe. Abeyta's paintings are luminous, layered, and emotionally expansive — combining abstract expressionist gesture with the visual languages of Navajo sand painting, textile geometry, and the vast space of the Diné homeland. His canvases often feel like landscapes seen from altitude, their surfaces built up through accumulation of pigment and mark. He has exhibited internationally and is represented by leading Santa Fe galleries. His work is in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution, the Heard Museum, and major private collections worldwide.