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Paintings also available at:

 

shafferthegallery.com

and

medicinemangallery.com

 

       

      

 

        

 

            

 

              home

   Prints and giclee gallery

        bookstore

        bio & booking

   media & cool sites

    Current events

        Past events

              email

 

Paintings also available at:

 

shafferthegallery.com

and

medicinemangallery.com

 

 

 

 

 

                  Hunter's Stalk  60" x 30" acrylic on canvas

                                                  Please email for price and availability.

Shonto Begay - Diné artist

 

Maternal Clan: Bitter Water      Paternal Clan: Salt Clan

In Navajo, the word Shonto refers to light reflecting off water. A similar glint is in Shonto Begay’s eyes when his paintbrush meets canvas. Shonto’s writings and paintings capture a moment of Diné, the people.

Born on a Navajo reservation sheep camp to a weaver of Tonalea storm patterns and a respected medicine man, as a boy Shonto was removed from his Hogan home and forced to attend a government boarding school away from his family and culture. Now he reclaims his identity through his art, balancing the harsh realities of reservation life with the amazing beauty found among its canyons and mesas. “I am very mindful that painting has saved my life many times over,” says Shonto. “It is how I’ve been able to dilute and even heal my own personal tragedies.”

Shonto’s images include truck beds full of families, hitchhikers and mesas that seem to go on forever. From first light upon the red earth to images of Manhattan, his impressionistic brushstrokes depict moments in time that pay homage to his memories or state his concerns about the environment and encroaching development.

Shonto is a volunteer with Grand Canyon Chapter of the Sierra Club, Black Mesa Trust and the Save the Peaks efforts. For more information about Native people, land and resources, visit : www.nativemovement.org  www.swfa.org   www.blackmesawatercoalition.org and www.blackfire.net

 

 

“From Beneath The Blanket” acrylic on canvas, 2005

Shonto's multi-award winning work has been featured at the Museum of Northern Arizona, Heard Museum in Phoenix, The Smithsonian Institute, the American Indian Contemporary Arts Museum in San Francisco, Arizona State Museum the American Indian Community House Gallery in New York City. His mural work and pen and ink drawings of the Navajo Legend of the Hero Twins are on display at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe.

 

 

"Flagstaff Bound," acrylic on canvas, 2003      

Navajo folksinger Clarence Clearwater  www.cclearwater.com.

Click here  Bi Chii Diyah-Blessingway Song©

to hear Clarence while you browse this site.

 

 

 

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