It’s all too terrible for words.
DeAnna Autumn Leaf Suazo wasn’t on her way to becoming a leading Native artist, a leader in her community—she was already there. A light. Shining perhaps too brightly for this world.
Suazo was killed in 2021 outside of her Taos Pueblo home at age 29 by her longtime boyfriend following an argument.
The Millicent Rogers Museum in Taos remembers the artist during an exhibition, Honoring DeAnna Autumn Leaf Suazo, on view through March 1, 2027.
Spondylous Shell, 2021, acrylic on canvas. Loaned courtesy of the family.
“The way you stepped into the [exhibition gallery], you feel the warmth. There were a couple of people who did struggle going through it because they felt her presence,” Suazo’s mother Geraldine Tso (Diné) says. “You see small miniature pieces of her drawings on music sheet paper to her massive, large acrylic paintings. I’ve always wondered how did she paint these because DeAnna was a petite girl.”
Suazo’s parents donated pieces of their daughter’s work to the exhibition and helped install the show. Both Suazo’s mother and father, David Gary Suazo (Taos Pueblo), are artists. So are her older brother and sister. So are her godparents, iconic Taos Pueblo fashion designer Patricia Michaels and iconic Diné painter Tony Abeyta. Suazo grew up going to art shows and making art.
“She started to do monotypes at 2½ [years old]—the best babysitting tool ever,” Gary Suazo says. “That’s how they learned. They learned how to do monotypes. They learned how to work negative, because when you print, you have to do a negative to come out positive; they learned color control.”
Left: Pink Lady, 2021, marker and graphite on ledger paper. Loaned courtesy of the family. Right: Umbrella Girl, 2021, marker and graphite pen on ledger paper. Loaned courtesy of the family.
What DeAnna Suazo learned, from toddler onward, she developed into a unique artistic signature. She blended her Diné and Taos Pueblo heritage with an interest in Japanese manga novels and anime introduced to her by Cartoon Network. The combination resulted in a completely fresh approach to both. Pablita Velarde meets Dragon Ball Z. Nothing like it before or since.
Suazo’s artwork affected people. “Clients, friends, family, her art would make them happy, make them smile,” her father says. “Look at her paintings and drawings and it gives you a good feeling. It had a sense of humor in it.”
The year Suazo died was a breakthrough year. She was going places. Big places. She graduated from the Institute of American Indian Arts in spring of 2021 with a BFA in studio arts and was admitted into IAIA’s inaugural MFA program that summer. She was named a SITE Santa Fe Scholar, and the 2021 Taos Fine Arts Visionary Artist. Her first illustrated picture book was published in 2021. Illustrations from the children’s book on view at Millicent Rogers Museum have never been shown publicly.
Fish, 2021, acrylic on canvas. Loaned courtesy of the family.
“I miss watching her work with her art,” Tso said. “She always had a smile, she giggled [when working].”
Suazo posthumously received her MFA from IAIA in 2022. The school also established the DeAnna Autumn Leaf Suazo Memorial Fund supporting Indigenous women artists. She is further remembered in Taos with her likeness appearing on a large mural, Historical Women of Taos, painted on the Rio Grande Hall downtown. —
Through March 1, 2027
Honoring DeAnna Autumn Leaf Suazo
Millicent Rogers Museum
1504 Millicent Rogers Road, Taos, NM 87571 (575) 758-2462, www.millicentrogers.org
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