John & Lomahaftewa Shine
Kiva Fine Art
On the snowy morning of Feb. 1, 1989, Paula Rhae McDonald opened Kiva Fine Art in the El Centro building just steps from Santa Fe’s historic downtown plaza. Minutes after McDonald unlocked the door, Navajo painter David K. John walked in, accompanied by his wife Cathleen and some of his newest works. The gallery occupied only 100 square feet at the time, but there were still some empty display areas. Motioning to an empty space in the gallery, John said, “I think these pieces would look good there,” McDonald recalls. Now, 15 years and an expansion to 3,800 square feet of gallery space later, Kiva Fine Art has an entire room dedicated to John’s paintings.

above: Healing Deity by David K. John, acrylic on canvas, 50" x 60"; below: Northern Deities by Dan Lomahaftewa, mixed media on canvas, 24" x 36".

Works by Hopi painter Dan V. Lomahaftewa also are prominently featured in the gallery through October, while other Native painters, sculptors, potters, jewelers, basket weavers and wood workers also consistently maintain a strong presence.

While Lomahaftewa’s paintings reflect skillful artistry and his formal art education from Arizona State University, there is an exciting and unique energy in his depictions of cyclic messengers, corn maidens and cultural memories. Lomahaftewa often uses saturated reds and blues to portray highly textured and layered imagery of everyday rituals and special ceremonials he observed growing up in Shungopavi on the Hopi reservation in northeastern Arizona.

John was educated at the Institute of American Indian Arts and Brigham Young University, and his paintings combine technical mastery with an aura of peacefulness. This attracts a wide variety of collectors—particularly doctors, including psychiatrists, who say his pieces are relaxing, according to McDonald.

John’s paintings currently available in the gallery depict Navajo mythology and stories that he learned from his grandfather, a medicine man who raised John in Keams Canyon, Arizona. The yei bei chei figures in his paintings have an ethereal presence and are often found in a celestial setting, such as in “Star Gazer.” In other works, however, the spiritual figures are inherently linked to the physical world, as in “Harvest Chant,” in which stalks of corn extend downward from the yeis in place of legs.
“I understand that I must be careful with these symbols and the sacred information that I draw inspiration from,” John says. “So I alter them a little. They are not exact copies of the masks and symbols. My paintings are my own vision.”

Kiva Fine Art
102 E. Water St.
Santa Fe, NM 87501
505/820-7413 or www.kivaindianart.com