I show up to the canvas the way my people show up to ceremony — with full presence and full heart.  Hi, I’m Le’Ana.

I’m an Ojibwe/Anishinaabe oil painter, an enrolled member of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, and a devoted mother of two. I live and paint in the Chicago area, where my studio practice is rooted in one simple belief: these stories deserve to be seen.

I paint because it is how I was raised to remember.

My grandmother beaded. My late father painted. Long before I had a BFA or a gallery wall, I understood that making something by hand was an act of love — a way of saying we are still here. That understanding lives in every canvas I create.

Today my work honors the warriors, dancers, and community members who carry Indigenous traditions forward in contemporary life. Not as history. As now.

A few things about me:

I earned my BFA from Eastern Michigan University and have been painting professionally ever since. My work has been exhibited at Santa Fe Indian Market, EXPO Chicago, and the Eiteljorg Museum, and has earned first place honors along the way. You may have seen my paintings in Western Art Collector or Cowboys & Indians magazines, or in the PBS/WGN documentary A New Look at a Chicago Pioneer’s Legacy.

I am currently showing in Living Stories at the Gichiigamin Indigenous Nations Museum in Evanston — and if you’re local, I’d love for you to see the work in person.

A little more about the woman behind the brush:

  About twenty years ago I moved to the Chicago area and built my practice one painting at a time — while raising two kids, showing up for my community, and never once painting anything I didn’t mean.

I don’t paint from the outside looking in. I paint from inside a living culture, with deep responsibility to get it right.

Thank you for being here. I hope something on these walls finds its way home with you.

Original oils and commissioned portraits are available. →

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These days

I’m blessed to share my life with my two emerging adults, who keep me humble, proud, and perpetually amazed. We live in the suburbs of Chicago, where I’ve put down roots and built a life that feeds my art in ways I never expected.

When I’m not in the studio, you’ll find me in the garden — hands in the dirt, watching things grow. Some of those flowers have found their way onto my canvas. Both gardening and painting require the same things: patience, intention, and faith that something beautiful is coming.

My dog Shadow keeps me company through it all.

Life is full, rich, and rooted. My gratitude runs deep.