The Native-American painter Emmi Whitehorse (b. 1956) was born in Crownpoint, New Mexico, and grew up on a Navajo Reservation. Nature and the beauty of the Southwest remain a constant source of inspiration for Whitehorse, who is known for her large-scale abstract paintings on canvas conjuring the vibrant moods, sensory impressions, as well as her own memories of this landscape. Using colors inspired by her grandmother's weavings, these luminous, atmospheric images are created through layers of fine markings made with chalk, pencil, and oil sticks on handmade paper that is then mounted onto primed canvas. Through abstraction, Whitehorse lyrically conveys the metaphysical views of the world drawn from Navajo cosmology, generating an evocative image of nature and the elements. Dynamic in its range of hues and texture, the glowing picture plane is populated with animated spiral and elliptical motifs, in addition to pictographs inspired by flowers, seed pods, plants, musical notations and Navajo words that appear to float within this luxuriant field of dreamy colors.

Whitehorse received both a BA in painting and an MA in printmaking from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. Her work has been the subject of solo exhibitions organized by the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art; Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha; Tucson Museum of Art; Millicent Rogers Museum, New Mexico; Yuma Art Center, Arizona; and other venues. She has also participated in group exhibitions at the Springfield Art Museum; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington D.C.; Autry Museum of the American West, Los Angeles; Albuquerque Museum of Art; Cincinnati Art Museum; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts; and others. Her work is represented in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe; St. Louis Museum; Tucson Museum of Art; Albuquerque Museum; Denver Art Museum; and Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton; among other institutions. She lives and works in Santa Fe.

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