Mixed Media Collage Monotype of Navajo Yei Figure [SOLD]

“I use many different techniques, mediums and processes to reinforce my ideas. Although I have studied sculpture, drawing and printmaking, I choose painting as my means of translating these ideas as well as my spiritual self onto the canvas.” - Tony Abeyta

Navajo painter Tony Abeyta is one of the best and most collectible contemporary Native American artists of today.  Abeyta was educated at Santa Fe's Institute of American Indian Art, the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, and overseas in Italy and Southern France.  He later returned to school, taking postgraduate classes in art and filmmaking at the Chicago Art Institute. He is known for his singular style of New Mexico landscapes and his richly textured mixed media depictions of Navajo Yei Figures.

This excellent mixed-media collage monotype was completed in 1993 at Graphics Workshop.  Its subject is one of Abeyta’s favorites: a Navajo Yei figure. He began with a monotype print—a method of printing in which an image is created on a smooth, non-absorbent surface (usually a copper, zinc, glass or acrylic plate) and then transferred to a sheet of paper by pressing the two together.  He then augmented the printed image with additional layers of paints and strips of painted paper, creating subtle and beautiful textural variations. As is typical for Abeyta’s works, the colors are strong and striking.

This piece is signed and dated in pencil by the artist and marked with the Graphics Workshop chop mark.  It is framed beautifully and mounted with its edges exposed.

Condition: this Mixed Media Collage Monotype of Navajo Yei Figure is in excellent condition

Provenance: from the collection of a Kansas resident

Recommended Reading: 100 Artists of the Southwest by Douglas Bullis

Tony Abeyta (1965- ) Navajo Nation - image source unknown.