File:Indios (Indians), 2002, by Ray Abeyta.jpg

Indios (title), oil painting in the collection of the New Mexico Museum of Art

New Mexico art often seems opaque to those unfamiliar with the region’s mixing of languages and subjects. Ray Martín Abeyta addresses this quandary in Indios , a painting that questions the terms used to describe an indian. The composition appears as if it were an eighteenth-century religious painting from the highlands of Peru of Bolivia. But the subject refers to Christopher Columbus’s confusion as to whether “Indians” are from Asia or the Americas. The figures in the painting refer to the stereotyping of religious icons. Abeyta depicts the Hindu deity Shiva with his third eye representing enlightenment, while the serpents surrounding his body reference wisdom and eternity and the Ganges flows through his hair. The other deity depicted seems to be a fusion of the Meso-American god Quetzalcoatl and Shiva, but the portrayal is based on a misinterpretation of iconography. Hence, Abeyta shows Quetzalcoatl appropriately wearing Quetzal feathers but also ostrich feathers, as if he were African. In short, Abeyta questions thinking based on assumptions, preconceptions, and conventional wisdom that often proves inaccurate and misleading.

From the placard: New Mexico Museum of Art

Photographed by Regan Vercruysse, License: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Hybrid cultures: The painting refers to the mistaken belief that Columbus had reached the East Indies, when he actually reached North America. In the left cartouche we see the Mesoamerican deity, Quetzalcoatl, and on the right, Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction and transformation is depicted.