White Cube is pleased to announce representation of Emmi Whitehorse (b.1957, Crownpoint, New Mexico, US), alongside Garth Greenan Gallery. At the 2026 edition of Art Basel Hong Kong, her painting Father Sky meets Mother Earth (2025) will go on view at White Cube’s booth (1C23).
An enrolled member of the Navajo Nation, Whitehorse is known for her vibrant, poetic paintings of landscapes, inspired by both the unique topography of the American Southwest and her cultural heritage.
The artist studied at the University of New Mexico, receiving a BA in Painting in 1980 and an MA in Printmaking in 1982. During her time as a student, she became one of the youngest members of the groundbreaking Native American artist collective, the Grey Canyon Group, which was founded by Whitehorse and the late Jaune Quick-to-See Smith. The Grey Canyon Group was an early challenger of the stereotypes of Indigenous-made art and exhibited together in New Mexico, New York and throughout the American West in the late 1970s.
Informed by her Navajo heritage and the close relationship she holds with her seasonally changing homeland, Whitehorse’s ethereal abstract paintings traverse space, light and colour. Her meditative compositions are comprised of chalk pigments and oil washes of paint. Plant-like silhouettes hover alongside her own language of symbols, gestural marks and shapes, drawn in conte pencil, pastel and chalk. Grounded in the Navajo philosophy of Hózhó, her practice reflects a harmonious balance between humanity, beauty and nature.
Whitehorse first exhibited with White Cube in Paris in autumn 2025, which marked her first solo exhibition in France. In summer 2026, her work will feature in the group presentation ‘Earth: Works by Contemporary Indigenous North American Artists from Tia Collection’ at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, UK (13 June 2026 – 18 April 2027). Whitehorse’s work has been included in exhibitions around the world, including in ‘La Biennale di Venezia: Stranieri Ovunque - Foreigners Everywhere’ in 2024. Her works are housed in prestigious collections including the Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York; Denver Art Museum; Westfalisches Museum, Munster, Germany and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York among many others.
