“Tewa Nangeh/Tewa Country” Set to Open at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum on November 7

Exhibition puts contemporary Indigenous voices in dialogue with works created by Georgia O’Keeffe.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE–October 8, 2025–(Santa Fe, NM)–The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum is proud to announce the opening of Tewa Nangeh/Tewa Country on November 7, 2025. The first-of-its-kind exhibition at the Museum is co-curated by Bess Murphy, Luce Curator of Art and Social Practice, and artist Jason Garcia/Okuu Pín (Kha‘p‘o Owingeh / Santa Clara Pueblo).

Featuring more than 30 newly created works by 12 artists, scholars, and culture bearers from the six Tewa Pueblos in New Mexico—Nambé, Pojoaque, San Ildefonso, Ohkay Owingeh, Santa Clara, and Tesuque—Tewa Nangeh opens a critical dialogue around sacred landscapes, Indigenous belonging, and cultural ownership.

“Georgia O’Keeffe has often been presented as an icon of art making in Northern New Mexico but she has never been the only artist thriving in the area. The land has been home to Tewa people from time immemorial and this exhibition gives voice to contemporary artists whose heritage and culture have not been represented in O’Keeffe’s work. We are excited to reveal what has been crafted after years of planning, meaningful conversations, and powerful experiences with the group of participating artists,” Murphy said.

Three Museum galleries will be transformed with a dynamic array of traditional pottery, sculptural installations, a monumental earthen mural, paintings, screen prints, drawings, and video. Over the course of its ten-month run, Tewa Nangeh/Tewa Country will shift and evolve, with selections of the exhibition recreated, reflecting the living, breathing nature of the culture it honors.

Co-curator Jason Garcia will show three clay tiles, which are created, fired, and painted using traditional methods, featuring his signature comic book motifs with imagery of O’Keeffe and Tewa iconography. A second installation by Garcia will progress as a series of works on paper of Tsí Pín, the Tewa name for Cerro Pedernal, the flat-topped mountain O’Keeffe viewed and painted from her home at Ghost Ranch. The initial display will feature 19 works and grow until Garcia has surpassed 29 works, the number of paintings O’Keeffe completed of the mountain in her lifetime.

“O’Keeffe once said that if she painted Tsí Pín enough, ‘God would make the mountain hers.’ I returned to Tsí Pín again and again—not to possess it, but to be in conversation with it. In creating more works of this mountain than she did, there is a cultural reclamation that I hope resonates throughout the three galleries. This installation and exhibition are the result of devotion, time, and a relentless pull toward a sacred place that has always been a part of Tewa people and never belonged to just one person,” Garcia said.

Other Selections from the Exhibition Include:

Arlo Namingha (Ohkay Owingeh, Hopi) will present three sculptures—one of Indiana limestone, one of bronze, and one mixed media—each representing different aspects of O’Keeffe’s relationship to the region. The bronze sculpture, Sandhills, 2008, relates to the shift and continuous change to the surrounding landscapes of Northern New Mexico. Containing three curved panels and a cylinder, the panels represent Tewa culture, language traditions, and ceremony, while the cylinder represents the sun.

Samuel Catanach (P’osuwaegeh Owingeh / Pueblo of Pojoaque) created a piece inspired by O’Keeffe’s letter-writing practice. A desk and chair will be set in the galleries for visitors to sit and read letters Catanach wrote. The letters express what he finds important and how he perceives O’Keeffe as a visitor to Tewa Nangeh. Catanach positions O’Keeffe as his contemporary, musing that if she were alive today, she would be someone he would be eager to engage with and learn from. He wonders in his writing how O’Keeffe would respond to his thinking and writing.

During a research trip to O’Keeffe’s home at Ghost Ranch, Marita Swazo Hines (Tesuque Pueblo) considered O’Keeffe’s personal rituals as she created a micaceous clay tea set; including, a tea pot, teacups, and saucers in her piece, Let’s Have Tea, Tea Time With Georgia, 2025. In her work, she imagines a conversation with herself and O’Keeffe and their unique relationships to the land.

A large, striking screen print from Michael Namingha (Ohkay Owingeh, Hopi) will anchor the largest gallery of Tewa Nangeh. The image depicts a pyrocumulonimbus cloud, which is created by intense heat from fire, volcanic eruption, or nuclear explosion. Namingha ponders the past and present of this cloud’s appearance in New Mexico, including the historic testing of atomic weapons and, more recently, in the devastating Calf Canyon wildfire of 2022. His work, Disaster #8, is in conversation with O’Keeffe’s 1945 painting Pelvis Series Red with Yellow, an abstracted view of the New Mexican sky that she created during the intense political climate of World War II, connecting both artists with their reflections of destruction.

Charine Pilar Gonzales (San Ildefonso Pueblo) created This Land Carries Us, a short film of site-specific footage and family narratives, including the voices of her own relatives. The visuals in this film reaffirm what has always been true: one cannot speak of Tewa land without also speaking of Tewa people.

A mural created from pencil, hand-gathered clay, and natural mineral pigments by Eliza Naranjo Morse (Kha’p’o Owingeh / Santa Clara Pueblo) explores the work of gathering clay–something Naranjo Morse did as a child. Collecting the earthen materials for this mural was a return to her past in many ways, connecting to her childhood, her ancestors, her community, and to the earth

“Tewa Nangeh is about relationships–between the artists, their communities, the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Georgia O’Keeffe herself, and the land upon which we exist. This exhibition is the physical expression of Tewa perspectives presented through pottery, painting, sculpture, video, and more,” Murphy said.

Participating Artists, Scholars, and Culture bearers:

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See it Free!

Tewa Nangeh/Tewa Country opens on Friday, November 7, with a community celebration on First Friday! Admission will be free from 4:00 PM to 8:00 PM with music, traditional Pueblo dancers, art activities, food trucks, and more. This special First Friday is supported by the Santa Fe New Mexican as the presenting sponsor and the City of Santa Fe Arts and Culture Department and the 1% Lodgers’ Tax.

Bring the kids! The Museum will host a very special Family Day celebrating Tewa Nangeh/Tewa Country. Through hands-on artmaking, story time, and cultural exchange, learn more about the past, present, and future of Tewa land and how coming together as a community can preserve the place that has captivated and inspired artists for centuries. Admission is free for New Mexico residents and family day participants.

For the duration of Tewa Nangeh/Tewa Country, admission is free for members of Indigenous communities, tribes, and nations through September 7, 2026. Advance tickets are available at gokm.org or by reaching out to the Visitor Services team at 505-946-1000.

Tewa Nangeh/Tewa Country is funded through generous support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, New Mexico Humanities Council, the Terra Foundation for American Art, and the Henry Luce Foundation.

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For media inquiries, contact:
Renee Lucero | Public Relations Manager, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum | 505-946-1063

Supplemental information:

Press release, July 15, 2025, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Announces Tewa Nangeh/Tewa Country

Press release, September 2, 2025, Indian Market Brought Awards and Opportunities to “Tewa Nangeh/Tewa Country” Curators and Artists

ABOUT THE GEORGIA O’KEEFFE MUSEUM: Since 1997, the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum celebrates the art, life, and independent spirit of Georgia O’Keeffe. Located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where Georgia O’Keeffe lived the final decades of her life, the O’Keeffe has sites and experiences in two historic destinations, Santa Fe and Abiquiú. For more information, please visit gokm.org.