Killer Whale painting I did 10 years ago which the Alaska Native Heritage Center in Anchorage purchased for their collection.
Earlier this year, I began painting a little larger scale. I find myself putting in just as much detail as my smaller paintings though, as you can see in my latest, “Killer Whale / Tsaagweidi.
I’ll just reiterate the description I have in the online store:
This painting has a lot of activity! It represents a killer whale with a seal in the body; a theme in the Tsaagweidi clan crest. Tsaagweidi is the clan I belong to. The design shows a killer whale breaching, with water spouts represented by humanoid figures, and a face in the blowhole spouting.
The face in the dorsal fin represents water splashing as the fin slice through the waves, while the other humanoid figure slides down the backside of the dorsal fin. The three faces between the flukes of the tail are water splashing also. The face inside the tail has red facial painting which stands for a dorsal fin.
Inside the body is a seal, and its smaller spirit figure. All the humanoid creatures surrounding the killer whale are water, waves, spraying and splashing.
30″ x 24″ x 1½” acrylic on birch.