Michael Kabotie was born on September 3, 1942 on the Hopi Indian Reservation and grew up in the village of Shungopavi. While in his junior year at the Haskell Indian School in Lawrence, Kansas, he was invited to spend the summer at the Southwest Indian Art Project at the University of Arizona. After dropping out of college he held a one-man show at the Heard Museum and his work was on the cover of Arizona Highways magazine. In 1967 Michael underwent his Hopi manhood initiation into the Wuwutsim Society and was given his Hopi name, Lomawywesa (Walking in Harmony).

Both Michael and his father, Fred Kabotie, have been innovators in the Native American Fine Arts Movement, creating paintings that reflect traditional Hopi life in contemporary media. In 1973, Michael was a founding member of Artist Hopid, a group of painters experimenting in fresh interpretations of traditional Hopi art forms.

Michael has lectured across America, in New Zealand, Germany and Switzerland. You can find his works in museums around the world, from the Heard Museum in Phoenix to the British Museum of Mankind in London, England, and the Gallery Calumet-Neuzzinger in Germany.

Michael’s painting reflects his Hopi mentors, the pre-European Awatovi kiva mural painters and the Sikyatki pottery painters with a contemporary interpretation.