Dyani White Hawk facts for kids

Dyani White Hawk (born in 1976) is a modern artist and curator. She has Sicangu Lakota, German, and Welsh family roots. Dyani lives and works in Minnesota. From 2010 to 2015, she worked as a curator for the All My Relations gallery in Minneapolis.

As an artist, Dyani White Hawk mixes modern abstract painting with traditional Lakota art. Her artworks show both her American upbringing and the art styles of her Native ancestors.

Her art has been shown in many places. These include the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and the Ca' Foscari University in Italy. Her work is also in the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. In 2023, she became a MacArthur Fellow. This award recognized how her art shows the lasting impact of Indigenous art on modern art. In 2024, she received a Guggenheim Fellowship for Fine Arts.

Early Life and Learning

Dyani White Hawk was born and grew up in Madison, Wisconsin. Her mother, Sandy White Hawk, was adopted from the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. As a child, Dyani did not have much connection to her Lakota family.

When she was a teenager, she started learning about her Lakota heritage. She began to understand her identity. Dyani says her life has been a mix of Western and Indigenous ways of learning. It has also been a mix of different values and worldviews.

Dyani earned her first college degree in 2003. This was from Haskell Indian Nations University. In 2008, she got a BFA in 2-D Studio Arts from the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA). She then earned her MFA in Studio Arts in 2011. This was from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Dyani thanks her mother for encouraging her art skills early on. Her first painting was for her IAIA application. Her early art was inspired by popular culture and street art. Later, she was influenced by abstract artists like Mark Rothko. She also learned from traditional Native art forms. While she favors Lakota traditions, she also finds inspiration in other Native arts. An example is Navajo weaving.

About Her Art

Dyani White Hawk is known for her paintings. These paintings are often easel-sized. They show abstract designs with bright colors. The colors are arranged in balanced or unbalanced patterns. She often uses patterns and lines that look like quillwork, beadwork, and textiles.

For example, in her painting Seeing (2010), the canvas is a square. It is divided into nine smaller squares. This creates a grid. But the grid is broken by a deep blue sky with clouds. This sky is in the middle of the painting. Four striped squares are in each corner.

Through her abstract art, Dyani explores how traditional Native American art connects to modern art. Her work often points out a problem. Native artists are sometimes not recognized as much as Western artists. This happens even when Western artists are inspired by Native art.

Her oil paintings often feature Native American designs. These include moccasin toes, ledger drawings, and blanket patterns. She also uses porcupine quills and teepee forms.

Dyani explores her cultural heritage in her art. She also does this as a curator. She has said that her art helps her understand history. It helps her understand the land and our connections to it. Her work has been shown at the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts. It is also in the Akta Lakota Museum.

Dyani's art has been shown in many group exhibitions. These include the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Her work is also at the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts in Santa Fe.

Dyani White Hawk's painting won an award in 2011. It was "Best of Classification" at the Santa Fe Indian Art Market. She also won First Place in painting at the 2011 Northern Plains Indian Art Market. She received the McKnight Visual Artist Fellowship in 2013.

Dyani White Hawk is known for art that represents Native American culture. She puts many messages in her artwork. For example, "I am your Relative" shows eight Native women. They share their prayers and stories about their Native land.

Dyani's art is in many museums. She has also worked with artists in at least four different countries. She uses abstraction to connect American Indian traditions with modern art. She was given the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant in 2014. She also received fellowships in 2015 and 2017. In 2018, she got the Nancy Graves Grant. In 2019, she received the U.S. Fellowship for Visual Art.

In 2022, Dyani created a large artwork called Wopila | Lineage. It was for the Whitney Biennial. This piece is 14 by 8 feet. It is made of half a million glass beads. "Wopila" is a Lakota word meaning deep gratitude. Dyani says the piece honors Lakota women. It also thanks Indigenous women for their art contributions. She hopes her art creates talks about how connected these art histories are.

Solo Exhibitions

• 2016 - Storied Abstraction, Bockley Gallery, Minneapolis, MN.
• 2015 - Dyani White Hawk, Shiprock Santa Fe Gallery, Santa Fe, NM.
• 2014 - Into the Light: Paintings and Prints by Dyani White Hawk, Bockley Gallery, Minneapolis, MN.
• 2013 - An Exhibition of Works by Dyani White Hawk, Gallery 110, University of South Dakota, Vermillion, SD.
• 2012 - Dyani White Hawk, Bockley Gallery, Minneapolis, MN.
• 2011 - Inseparable, Art Lofts Gallery, Madison, WI.

Group Exhibitions

• 2019-2020 - Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists, traveling exhibition. It was shown at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Frist Art Museum, Renwick Gallery (part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum), and Philbrook Museum of Art.
• 2020 - Indelible Ink: Native Women, Printmaking, Collaboration. University of New Mexico Art Museum.