Across multiple series, I work with auction catalogs, magazines, art ephemera, and printed imagery that I layer, dissolve, and transform into skinlike surfaces. Rooted in Zuni understandings of spirit and material transformation, the process becomes ceremonial: paper becomes flesh, image becomes spirit.
Hungry Heart
9 1/16 x 12 ¼ inches
Acrylic on found ledger
2021
One Braid
9 1/8 x 12 3/16 inches
Acylic on ledger
2021
PRIVATE COLLECTION
GUCCI GUCCI, Acrylic on printed paper, 24 x 24 in (60.96 x 60.96 cm) 2022 Inquire
Superimposed upon this historical framework is a highly stylized, contemporary avatar: a woman of the world adorned in the structural visual language of Gucci. Employing hard edge abstraction and bold material presence, this figure represents modern self-determination. Her posture, simultaneously guarded by geometric armor and intimately self-possessed as she caresses her exposed nipple—subverts the traditional gaze.
Entitled
Acrylic on auction catalog pages
24 x 24 in ( 60.96 x 60.96 cm)
2022
PRIVATE COLLECTION
Silvester Hustito a.k.a. Sobé, Why Am I Alive Now? Installation view at Participant Inc PRIVATE COLLECTION
Within the Zuni Pueblo, women are the quiet, foundational pillars holding up the sky. They are the fierce protectors of sacred culture, the safe harbors for their families, and the ones who silently absorb the cumulative, heavy fractures of life so that others do not have to break. It is a role that demands a beautiful, devastating sacrifice.
To survive an entire world piled onto your shoulders, you cannot remain static. You must possess the power to shape-shift.
The fractured geometry of the central figure's face is not a breaking apart of the self, but the visual record of that exact, aching alchemy. It is a woman bending without breaking, shifting her gaze between the deep quiet of her ancestors and the modern storm, altering her very features to hold a love too heavy for a single heart to bear alone.
Ultimately, Transformation is an act of profound empathy and a monument to the unshakeable, generational solidarity of Pueblo women. No matter how much the modern world demands of them, they do not collapse. They lean into each other, they transform, and through the terrifying power of their lineage, they turn the heaviest grief of this earth into an absolute, breathtaking grace.
Hopi Hopi
Acrylic on ledger
36 x 36 in (91.44 x 91.44 cm)
2022
In the Collection of University of Art at New Mexico State Museum, Las Cruces, NM
Transformation, Acrylic on printed paper, 18 x 20 (45.72 x 50.8 cm) 2023 PRIVATE COLLECTION
In Transformation, the historical image of We’wha (c. 1849–1896), the renowned Zuni lhamana, is recontextualized through a contemporary lens. As a cultural ambassador, weaver, and potter who held a privileged and influential position within Zuni culture, We’wha’s legacy of fluid identity and ceremonial importance is profound. By placing a figure in a state of vivid transformation, a reflection of the lhamana who walked between social and ceremonial roles, the work bridges the past and the present, honoring the resilience and fluid identities inherent in our traditional history.
Untitled
18 x 24 in (45.72 x 60.96 cm)
Acrylic on paper
2023
Feather Bomb, Feather assemblage on auction catalog pages, 36 X 48 in (60.96 x 121.92 cm) 2022 Inquire
This work exists at the intense, vibrant intersection of sacred tradition and contemporary commercialism.
At the center of the piece is the "feather bomb" a swirling, kinetic vortex of color and texture. For the Zuni people, feathers are far from mere decorative objects; they hold profound religious significance, serving as vital, physical conduits for prayers, blessings, and direct communication with the spirit world. They are essential to our initiation ceremonies, the meticulous adornment of religious dance costumes, and the enduring practices of traditional medicine societies. By structuring these feathers into a dense, explosive radial form, the work channels a living, breathing spiritual energy that radiates outward.
This sacred mass is deliberately juxtaposed against a background constructed from art auction catalog pages. While these documents represent the commercial commodification of culture, they also crackle with a unique, ambient energy they are archives of human expression, potent and oozing with a distinct creative static.
By layering the profound spiritual weight of traditional Zuni motifs over the history of modern and contemporary art, the piece captures a collision of worlds. It is an exploration of how sacred objects retain their power when forced to navigate the secular, high-stakes marketplace. The result is a visual pulse that carries both the deep, ancestral reverence of the Southwest and the electric, unstoppable vibrancy of New York City.
