Basketball Kachina Miniature

Description

This multitalented Hopi artist is best known for his miniature watercolor/pen and ink works.

He specializes in meticulously detailed, authentic depictions of dancers as kachinas. The paintings are full of color and movement, as well.

This delightful painting is of a Koshare, one of the ceremonial clowns. They have solemn duties, but are primarily a source of humorous social control.

They might exaggerate gross behavior, emphasizing what not to do, or just burlesque inappropriate actions, for additional laughs, as here.

A ceremonial dance is definitely not the place to play basketball!

The colors are muted, but contrast well with the suffused sun-and-sky colors in the background.

Every bit of his outfit, down to the unlaced high-tops, is meticulously delineated.

Matted, as the artist brought it in, this would make a fine collection with his other “sports kachinas”, elsewhere on this site: the golfer and the soccer player.