Eco warriors

Eco Warriors
Le’Ana Asher Ojibwe (Keweenaw Bay Indian Community)
Oil on canvas, 24 × 36 in, 2024

Eco Warriors is a portrait of the Earth’s defenders. At the top of the canvas, an Anishinaabe woman appears at monumental scale, the planet resting on her brow like a halo. Below her, women from every inhabited continent rise from a single sea, including Sonia Guajajara, Alessandra Korap Munduruku, Nemonte Nenquimo, Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, Amelia Telford, Wangari Maathai, Sharice Davids, Deb Haaland, and astronaut Nicole Mann, alongside women from Hawai’i and Standing Rock. Their nations and struggles differ, but the painting places them in the same water, because the fight for land, water, and life has never belonged to one place.

Around them, the world is in crisis. A forest burns beneath a blood-red sun, a fire the artist reads as the result of pushing out the people who once tended the land with fire. A lone visitor in a red jacket stands on a melting iceberg with their back to us, though the ice extends far deeper than what we can see. Below, whales swim through changing water. They are not resources but relatives, part of the circle.

At upper right, a medicine woman sits in ceremony beside a copper pot, speaking to all our relations about the next steps forward. Her presence turns the painting from an indictment into a gathering, drawing on the Anishinaabe Seven Fires prophecy. If the right road is chosen, the Seventh Fire lights the Eighth and final Fire, an eternal fire of peace, unity, and balance. In Anishinaabemowin, fire is ishkode.

Eco Warriors is part of the artist’s series on social justice and resilience. We are still here.

Details

• Medium: Oil on canvas
• Size: 24 × 36 in
• Edition: Original, one of a kind
• Year: 2024
• Signed:  on the front / on the back]
• Edges:   ready to hang / Gallery wrap / Staple edges, framing recommended
• Framing:  Sold unframed
• Shipping: Ships insured, in a protective bespoke crate or box.
• Certificate of authenticity: Included