Water Is Life by Erika Koenig-Workman

Discovery

"Numerous tribes join together standing for water, rejecting the building of the North Dakota Access Pipeline. I intentionally made the trees larger and used birch bark instead of paint and painted the picture blue to emphasis the importance of water. The tepees and indigenous people are dwarfed by the trees and presence of blue that represents water, the essence of life, which dominates the entire scene.”

Erika Koenig-Workman
Water Is Life, 2016
Acrylic Paint and Birch Bark on Wood
12 x 12 x 0.75 in (30.48 x 30.48 x 1.91 cm)
C$185
Available

“In the summer of 2016 I watched the unfolding of the #NODAPL grassroots movement growing with intensity. #WaterIsLife was the hashtag, the US military were squaring off on the Standing Rock Reservation with Aboriginal people’s located in North South Dakota in the United States. Numerous tribes joined together standing for water, rejecting the building of the North Dakota Access Pipeline.

I intentionally made the trees larger and used birch bark instead of paint and painted the picture blue to emphasis the importance of water.

The tepees and indigenous people are dwarfed by the trees and presence of blue that represents water, the essence of life, which dominates the entire scene.”

Subject Matter: No Dakota Access Pipeline [NDAPL]
Current Location: Studio 217
Reproductions: Available
Collections: Landscape, Multimedia

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My inspiration to create comes from my Roman Catholic Traditional Faith, family, nature, community, and current contemporary issues that inspire me. I value experimentation in my creative process. I engage with materials that ignite my imagination. Visions and fantasy play a role in my creative process.

I collaborate with other artists and work with ideas on public art projects that positively effect people and communities.

Additionally, I use typography and graphic design elements in my work. I believe words are alive—imbued with thousands of years of meaning.

Letters express their own kind of symbology and speak to every person uniquely. In my creating I endeavor to make the invisible visible.

Erika Koenig-Workman

Richmond, British Columbia

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