The Collection

Patrick Dean Hubbell is a Diné (Navajo) artist whose work engages Indigenous identity, cultural knowledge, and history through the language of painting and abstraction. He is To’ahani’ (Near to Water Clan), born for Dibe’lizhini (Black Sheep), with his maternal grandfather from the Kinyaa’aanii (Towering House People) and paternal grandfather from the Hona’ghaahnii (One Who Walks Around Clan). Originally from Navajo, New Mexico, near the Arizona–New Mexico border of the Navajo Nation, Hubbell explores how Diné traditions and worldviews intersect with and challenge Western art historical frameworks.

His practice navigates the space between contemporary abstraction and the notion of “Indigenous art.” Draped, sliced, and layered canvases often incorporate natural materials and graphic motifs, bringing the land and its textures into conversation with the structures of the art canon. Through these formal strategies, Hubbell asserts Indigenous presence and knowledge while expanding the possibilities of painting.

Hubbell’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is held in numerous public and private collections. He is the recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (2017), the New Artist Society Award from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2019), and the James Nelson Raymond Fellowship (SAIC, 2021). He earned his MFA from SAIC and continues to live and work on the Navajo Nation.