Painted: Our Bodies, Hearts, and Village

Artists Featured
Artists represented in the project include Margeaux Abeyta, Mozart Abeyta, Tony Abeyta, Oscar Berninghaus, Ernest Blumenschein, Gerald Cassidy, Pop Chalee, Berdina Charley, E. Irving Couse, Herbert Dunton, Nicolai Fechin, Jody Naranjo Folwell, Susan Folwell, Jason Garcia, Jessa Rae Growing Thunder, Marsden Hartley, Ernest Martin Hennings, Seferina Herrera, Victor Higgins, Ahkima Honyumptewa, William Robinson Leigh, Albert Looking Elk, John Marin, Patricia Michaels, Robert Mirabal, Thomas Moran, Dan Namingha, Michael Namingha, Madeline Naranjo, Clara Neptune Keezer, Theresa Neptune Gardner, Molly Neptune Parker, Virgil Ortiz, Bert Geer Phillips, Juan Pino, Cara Romero, Diego Romero, Ken Romero, Yellowbird Samora, Mary Sanipass, Joseph Sharp, Sarah Sockbeson, Roxanne Swentzell, Awa Tsireh, and Walter Ufer.

Curatorial Team
As a part of a long-term commitment to furthering collaborative methodologies, the Colby Museum is integrating and centering input from Native community partners throughout the project. The reinstallation’s co-curators are 2021–22 Lunder Institute research fellows Juan Lucero (Isleta Pueblo) and Jill Ahlberg Yohe, who are working in collaboration with Siera Hyte, the Colby Museum’s assistant curator of modern and contemporary art. Virgil Ortiz (Cochiti Pueblo) is the project’s exhibition designer. A curatorial advisory council made up of Pueblo and Wabanaki artists and stakeholders is providing essential guidance on the installation and interpretation. The council members are Ron Martinez Looking Elk (Isleta Pueblo/Taos Pueblo), Patricia Michaels (Taos Pueblo), Theresa Secord (Penobscot), Sarah Sockbeson (Penobscot), and Dr. Joseph Suina (Cochiti Pueblo). Through this project, and specifically through the advisory council, the museum seeks to facilitate opportunities for intertribal dialogue between Wabanaki and Pueblo communities.

Painted: Our Bodies, Hearts, and Village is made possible through the support of the Terra Foundation for American Art and Colby Museum endowment funds provided by the Lunder Foundation and the Mellon Foundation, which supported the 2021–22 Lunder Institute Research Fellows Program. The installation was accompanied by a robust series of public programs, including a symposium in fall 2023 and a publication documenting the installation and including additional reflections, interviews, and research.

A generative project grounded in the museum’s permanent collection, the exhibition will inform ongoing research, exploration, and presentations of American art at the Colby Museum while it is on view and in the years ahead.