Marlowe Katoney (Diné) draws on personal experience and Navajo, street, and popular culture to create weavings and paintings that defy conventional notions of beauty and Indigenous art.

Winslow, Arizona | @marlowekat
A man wearing blue jeans and a white sleeveless T-shirt appears crouching and poised for movement in one of many weavings by Marlowe Katoney (Diné), an artist based in Winslow, Arizona, who says he draws inspiration from break dancers, skateboard culture, and observing people in the street. “I find inspiration in watching how people move,” he explains.
It’s a passion reflected in his growing body of work, which includes more than thirty pieces in Pulse: Paintings and Weavings by Marlowe Katoney, a solo exhibition that opened at the University of Arizona Museum of Art in Tucson in October 2023 and is on view through March 23, 2024.
Museum materials note that many of his pieces “directly relate to events in his life, while others are drawn from larger concepts related to popular culture, street art, nature, family, and Navajo culture.” Each reveals the artist’s penchant for blending historical Navajo patterns with contemporary imagery. “I deconstruct old ideas to create new ones,” Katoney says of his creative practice.
Essentially, Katoney builds living histories tethered to his own day-to-day existence and the practices of those who came before him. “Over my life-long relationship with art, I’ve realized a few things—art has always existed somewhere in the parameters between leisure, work, and relationships, whether it’s with a landscape, an inanimate object, a feeling, or another person,” he explains. “And it’s not always about an ideal pretty picture. There is beauty in everything. It’s in the contrast that we appreciate the chiaroscuro.”
Years ago, Katoney studied art at the university, where he focused on painting and enjoying time outside the classroom. “I used to go to raves, and some of my best friends were skaters,” he recalls. “When I left school, I ended up in textiles through my maternal grandmother, who was a weaver.” More than a decade later, Katoney is still making textiles, and thinking about the meaning and purpose of his work.
“As an artist, my work addresses the ongoing pursuit of freedom,” he says. Instead of adhering to conventional notions of beauty or leaning into people’s assumptions about Navajo art, Katoney wants to bring a fresh perspective to Navajo weaving. “I believe the capacity of the imagination is endless, and the motions of daily life can be fuel for the imagination.”




