Featured Artist: Abel Nash
- MIP Author
- Aug 8
- 2 min read
Updated: Aug 17
At first glance, Abel Nash’s watercolor paintings appear as intricate fields of lines, circles, figures, and geometric forms. Look closer, however, and the paintings reveal something deeper. They are expressions of family memory, Hopi knowledge, prayer, and the continuing relationship between people, culture, and the natural world.
Nash is a Hopi artist, a member of the Corn Clan, and a third generation artist from Walpi Village on First Mesa in Arizona. He began drawing and painting as a child while watching members of his family create. His great uncle Dalton painted and drew, while his father and grandfather carved katsina figures. Although Nash later studied culinary arts and worked in the restaurant industry, he returned to painting as a way to find balance after long days in the kitchen. Eventually, art became his full time profession. In a first person artist profile published by The ONWARD Project, Nash describes giving himself two years to build a sustainable career through his artwork. He has continued creating ever since.
Abel Nash is a Corn Clan artist from Walpi Village on First Mesa, Arizona. Watercolor painting by Hopi artist Abel Nash featuring layered geometric patterns, circular forms, f
Family Designs as Living Knowledge
Family remains central to Nash’s work. His great grandmother Bessie Namoki and grandmother Sandra Dewangyumpetwa were especially important influences. By studying and incorporating designs associated with their pottery, Nash continues to learn about the history and cultural knowledge passed through his family.
His watercolors frequently combine pottery inspired patterns with representations of prayer feathers, rain, corn, clouds, animals, insects, and migration. Long lines can represent the hope for a long and healthy life, while curves and changes in direction acknowledge the challenges and transformations encountered along the way. His principal palette of red, blue, yellow, and black echoes colors traditionally produced from natural pigments, while commercial watercolors allow the paintings to remain consistent and durable.
“For me my paintings are a picture of my prayers for the world and every living thing in it.” – Abel Nash, The ONWARD Project
Nash builds his paintings through carefully layered lines, forms, color, and culturally meaningful d
Nash’s work challenges the idea that Indigenous history belongs only to the past. His paintings make continuity visible. Family knowledge is remembered, practiced, interpreted, and carried forward through the hands of a living Hopi artist. Tradition is not presented as something motionless. It remains active, responsive, and capable of taking new forms.
That continuity has a lasting place at the Museum of Indigenous People. Nash created the dawa sun design used in the MIP logo. The museum describes the sun as representing light, guidance, and continuity, values that reflect MIP’s commitment to illuminating Indigenous culture and knowledge. Learn more about the MIP logo and mission.
Meet Abel Nash at MIP
Saturday, August 8, 2026, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Visitors can meet Abel Nash, observe a demonstration of his painting techniques, and purchase available artwork.
