Dyani White Hawk paints where two art histories meet. A Sičáŋǧu Lakota artist of Lakota and European American ancestry, she pairs the language of modern abstract painting with abstract Lakota art forms. Some of her works are paint on canvas. Others bring in beads, porcupine quillwork, and buckskin, pulling traditions that are usually told separately into one frame.

Her recent work in performance, video, and photography takes on Indigenous language, women's rights, and the relationships that connect cultures. At its core is a question she keeps pressing: why Native art, people, and voices remain so underrepresented in the national story.

That question has landed. White Hawk received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2023 and both a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Creative Capital grant in 2024. Her work is held by the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Guggenheim, the Brooklyn Museum, the Walker Art Center, Crystal Bridges, and the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, among others.

Based in Minneapolis, she holds an MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a BFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. From 2011 to 2015 she directed and curated the All My Relations Gallery in Minneapolis. She is represented by Bockley Gallery and Alexander Gray Associates.

Join us in Wanamaker Hall to hear her talk about her practice and take questions from the audience.

Event details

• Thursday, November 5, 2026
• 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. CT
• Wanamaker Hall, Principia College
• Free and open to the public
• Hosted by the Center for the Arts