An oil painting by Alan Mazzetti and 19th-century American Indian pottery complement each other.

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Art dealer Mark Sublette sees it often: A contemporary-art lover who has a home in the modern style comes to the Southwest and is drawn to the traditional American Indian and Western aesthetic.

But "they can't imagine that kind of stuff in their house," Sublette says, adding that they should.

Modern and contemporary art and traditional Southwestern art can blend into a harmonious décor, as Sublette demonstrates at his Foothills gallery, Mark Sublette Modern.

One recent vignette featured a painting by contemporary artist Alan Mazzetti. Its line of circles on a muted background of taupe, rust, black and green mimic and complement in shape and color the four 19th-century American Indian vessels below it.

The reason it works is the context in which the American Indian pieces are displayed, says Sublette, who also owns Medicine Man Gallery, which specializes in Western and American Indian art.

"Part of it is just the context of being in association with things very contemporary," he says. "When you put them in a context of being surrounded by abstraction, they take on their own sensibilities."

Many American Indian folk-art pieces lend themselves to contemporary settings because of their minimalist designs or geometrical patterns. The right color combinations and themes in textiles, baskets, pottery, jewelry and kachinas can enhance a modern décor.

"They have that sense of abstraction," says Sublette. "They may not look Native (American) to a lot of people."

On the other side, some well-known modern artists — Sublette mentions Agnes Martin, Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock as examples — found inspiration in American Indian folk art and reflected designs and techniques in their expressions.

Contemporary artists such as Michael Haykin and Ed Mell interpret Southwestern subjects in modern-art styles ranging from abstract to semi-realism.

Those influences make modern and contemporary pieces workable in a home décor more heavily defined as American Indian or Southwestern.

When combining the two genres into a room or whole house, Sublette suggests adding no more than 10 percent of one type into the other.

Don't create separate sections that focus on Southwestern or contemporary décor, he adds. "You want to have it blended in and in harmony with the other pieces."