Eagle Woman

Olympic Village

Eagle Woman

By Shain Niniwem Selapem Jackson

Image shows a detail of “Eagle Woman” by Shain Niniwem Selapem Jackson.

Eagle Woman is a digital drawing of an eagle matriarch dancing beneath a full copper moon. The work that we are showing a detail of was inspired by the many women in the artist’s life who have lifted him up and provided love, guidance, and support. The artist intends for viewers to feel these women’s ability to dance through adversity and pain with ferocious dignity and courage. In the artist’s own words:

“In each era rises a matriarch. She lives her entire life to serve but she’s no servant. She’s a weaver. Attendant to a loom made passed down parts. Its components fashioned generation after generation by glorious women who carry an exquisite vision, one of love and unity. The strands of her cloth are souls. Some have heartbeats, others made up only of memories spliced together with artful abandon. Some strands are copper and gold. Others are beautiful with ends frayed, tattered, or torn. She’ll mend them with the fibres of her own frock despite being threadbare itself. Such is the sacrifice her art insists.”

Shain Niniwem Selapem Jackson is from the community of shishálh and works in Coast Salish design. As he has continued to develop his own artwork to a higher level, he has had the privilege of collaborating with many well-known and up and coming artists.

Currently Shain is the President of Spirit Works Limited, an Indigenous owned, operated and staffed company focused on the design, production and distribution of Indigenous artwork such jewelry, bentwood boxes, paddles, and artworks integrated into building infrastructure. He is also the Executive Director of Golden Eagle Rising Society, a non-profit whose mandate is the protection of Indigenous lives.

This artwork was commissioned by the City of Vancouver Public Art Program for Platforms: Nine Places for Seeing.