The Collection

Matthew Kirk, an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation, is a self-taught artist whose mixed-media paintings and constructions combine Diné (Navajo) motifs with the visual and material language of his urban surroundings. Raised in Wisconsin after being born in Arizona, Kirk has lived and worked in Queens since 2006, where his background as an art handler shaped his inventive use of materials. Working with spray paint, oil stick, chalk, gouache, graphite, tape, staples, and even brass BBs, Kirk creates layered compositions that merge abstraction, comics, music, and Diné imagery into a unique visual lexicon.

His works often take the form of gridded “tiles” filled with recurring motifs—arrows, concentric forms, celestial, animal, and human symbols—that read as both personal memory maps and broader meditations on heritage and place. At once playful and rigorous, his art embraces and questions cultural tropes while asserting an expressive, improvisational voice rooted in both tradition and lived experience.

Kirk has exhibited widely, with recent presentations at the Brooklyn Museum (The Brooklyn Artists Exhibition, 2024–25), the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art (Hudson Valley Artists 2024: Bibliography), the Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College (Indian Theater, 2023), and The 8th Floor (The House Edge, 2023). His large-scale works have been installed in public spaces, including Meta’s New York offices in the James A. Farley Building (2022) and a commissioned project at the Zuckerman Museum of Art, Georgia (through 2025).

A 2019 recipient of the Eiteljorg Museum Fellowship for Contemporary Native American Art, Kirk’s work is represented in the collections of the Forge Project (Taghkanic, NY), the Everson Museum of Art (Syracuse, NY), and the Eiteljorg Museum (Indianapolis, IN), among others.