This is Native Art
by Art with Altitude
This article originally appeared in theWinter 2025-26 issue of Art with Altitude.
Art is not fixed in time. It breathes, it resists, it carries memory forward while shaping the present moment. This is Native Art—the groundbreaking exhibit now on view at the Tread of Pioneers Museum—makes this truth unmistakable.
Curated by celebrated artist Danielle Seewalker, who was featured in the summer 2025 issue of Art with Altitude, the exhibition gathers the voices of 35 contemporary Native American artists, weaving them into a living tapestry of expression. From the bold and the visionary to the intimate and the deeply personal, the works reveal what Native art has always been: current, evolving and inseparable from the pulse of now.
The exhibit began its journey in the halls of the Colorado State Capitol in the winter of 2024 as an initiative of Colorado Creative Industries. In the spring of 2025, the exhibit traveled to the Golden History Museum. Now, in Steamboat Springs, it arrives with a spirit of continuity, carrying stories across place and time, insisting that Indigenous art is not relic, but presence.
“Exhibiting Indigenous art helps to counter the false narratives and misunderstandings that Native history and culture are static,” says Candice Bannister, executive director of the Tread of Pioneers Museum. “It demonstrates Indigenous peoples’ continuous existence, highlights their resilience and sovereignty and challenges colonial narratives and stereotypes.”
The artists featured—Zander Arizona, Jason Barnes, Dante Biss-Grayson, Winter E.R. Brown, Jessica Clark, Laney Cully, Garrett Etsitty, John Gritts, Heather Johnston, Brent Learned, Savannah LeCornu, George Levi, Jaylee Lowe, Paul Lucero, Kristina Maldonado Bad Hand, Megan McDermott, Hattie Lee Mendoza, Timothy Tate Nevaquaya, Sarah Ortegon HighWalking, Loriene Pearson, Kimberly Robertson, Rhonda Shelford Jansen, Mason St. Peter, Angelica Trimble-Yanu, Anna Tsouhlarakis and Kate Wheeler—speak in many mediums, yet their collective voice resounds with clarity: Native art is not past tense.
At the heart of the exhibit is a teaching that Danielle carries from her Lakota father: “Take what you want and give the rest away. It’s really about giving back—and that’s very much our Lakota way of life and our culture.”
Elevate the Arts: The hope of This is Native Art is to spark curiosity, and to remind us that every work of art holds a story. In seeing these stories, we are asked to witness not only the diversity of Native artists’ works, but also the pride and generosity that continue to define their communities today. AwA
