Meet the Eiteljorg Museum 2025 fellows this weekend

Visitors will experience cutting-edge works of contemporary Native art in the new exhibition Emerging Current, open at the Eiteljorg Museum from Novemeber 8, 2025, through February 22, 2026. Five groundbreaking Native artists from the U.S. and Canada were chosen for the 2025 round of the Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship (ECAF). As part of the Fellowship, Emerging Current features a riveting mix of paintings, prints, sculptures, carvings, installations and assemblages.

As one of the leading institutions internationally focusing on contemporary Native art, the Eiteljorg will present unrestricted cash awards to this year’s five Fellows. The museum will purchase some of their artworks to add to its permanent collection of contemporary Native art, considered one of the best such collections anywhere.

Every other year since 1999, the museum has supported a new group of five artists in the contemporary Native art field as Eiteljorg Fellows. Four are chosen by a panel of art experts and one is invited based on a lifetime of work. Additionally, the museum organizes an exhibition of their art and publishes an art catalog for each cycle.

The 2025 Fellows each have made an impact on the contemporary art world:

• Invited artist Jean LaMarr (Northern Paiute / Achomawi [Pit River]) of Susanville Indian Rancheria, California, works in printmaking, painting, murals and installations. LaMarr’s art challenges stereotypes and misrepresentations of Native women and peoples, exposes environmental racism in her homelands and features elements of her cultural traditions.
• John Feodorov (Navajo [Diné]), formerly of Seattle, Washington, explores identity and the effects of being an urban Indian in his paintings, drawings, 3-D artworks and video performances. He recently retired after 21 years as an associate professor of art from Western Washington University.
• Erin Ggaadimits Ivalu Gingrich (Koyukon Dené / Iñupiaq) of Anchorage, Alaska, draws inspiration from her heritage in creating carved, painted and beaded sculptures and mask forms. Her art also includes photography, film, installation, poems and design, honoring her Native Alaskan ancestral homelands.
• Maria Hupfield (Anishinaabek, Wasauksing First Nation) of Toronto, Canada, merges performance art, design and sculpture — pursuing Indigenous storytelling traditions through art, scholarship, collaboration and social justice. Hupfield is on the faculty of the University of Toronto.
• Cannupa Hanska Luger (Mandan / Hidatsa / Arikara / Lakota) of Glorieta, New Mexico, is a multidisciplinary artist creating monumental installations, sculpture and performance art to communicate urgent stories of 21st century Indigeneity. Luger’s bold visual storytelling presents new ways of seeing our collective humanity while bringing an Indigenous worldview to the forefront.

“Each 2025 Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellow is a powerhouse, incredibly talented and articulate and whose practice is equally compelling,” Curator of Native American Art Dorene Red Cloud (Oglala Lakota), who is curator of the Fellowship, said. “The Emerging Current exhibition will be a pure visual and cerebral delight, and we are so excited to share this momentous program with our visitors and members.”

This year’s opening coincides with an academic conference for scholars in the Native art field, the Native American Art Studies Association, Nov. 5-7 in Indianapolis.

Special events with the Fellows will involve the public:

• 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Friday November 7: Exhibition Preview, Artist Awards and Celebration at the Eiteljorg Museum. Comedian and actor Casey Brown (Ho-Chunk) emcees the event, with music by DJ KEHIW (Cree, Tsuut’ina First Nation / Northern Paiute), accompanied by four performers from the acclaimed dance troupe Indigenous Enterprise. (Registration for the artist awards and celebration is now closed.)
• 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday November 8: Public tour of the exhibition Emerging Current, led by the Fellows. The tour is included with regular museum admission; Eiteljorg members have free admission.

Visitors can experience the Emerging Current exhibition daily November 8 through February 22 with regular admission, along with the museum’s other exhibitions.

To learn more about the 2025 Fellows, this year’s events and ECAF generally, visit contemporaryartfellowship.eiteljorg.org. 

About the Eiteljorg

For more than 36 years, the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art has been an integral part of the cultural fabric of Indianapolis and scenic White River State Park. The Eiteljorg Museum explores the intersection of the arts, histories and cultures of the past and present by sharing the diverse stories of the American West and the Indigenous Peoples of North America. Located on the Central Canal at 500 West Washington St., the Eiteljorg is a 501c3 nonprofit organization.