A word about Chico Mendes

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

A word about Chico Mendes

The Light the Land project focuses on environmental or land rights activists who have been killed in the past decade. Several people have asked if I planned to complete a portrait of Chico Mendes, a rights activist for rubber tappers of the Amazon and rainforest defender called the Patron of the Brazilian Environment by the government. Mr. Mendes was killed by a rancher in 1988 and his life and work helped inspire a movement within Brazil to establish more protections for the Amazon. Though I am not doing a rendering of Mr. Mendes for the site as he was not killed in the past decade, I would like to share a number of other portraits that have been done by artists worldwide in admiration for his life and work.

Please take a moment to click the name of the artist to go their webpage, and read the source material below for more of Chico Mendes' story and the current state of affairs for the rubber tappers of the Amazon.

Close up of Chico Mendes portrait from "I MARTIRI, Angelo Vassallo e Chico Mendes"
by Italian artist Sergio Michellini

Portrait of Chico Mendes by U.S. artist Jacqueline Bishop

Chico Mendes by U.S. artist Erin Currier

Chico Mendes by Brazilian cartoonist Marcio Liete

Articles about Chico Mendes:

"Brazil Salutes Chico Mendes 25 years after his murder," The Guardian, 2013

Website for the Chico Vive conference held in April 2014

The Life and Legacy of Chico Mendes, BBC, 2008

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What Is This?

"Light the Land" is a collection of portraits and stories of environmental activists who have been killed in the past decade. Starting on Earth Day 2014, I set out a goal to create or commission a portrait of one activist daily for 30 days. In the end, there were a total of 25 portraits. Most are still unfinished as they were only completed in a day.

This blog is a reaction to the recent report published by Global Witness about the dramatic increase in murders of activists worldwide over the past few years. Most of these brave individuals were killed due to their activism in a brutal attempt to silence their voices of opposition. In my small way, I hope to keep their voices and stories alive through my artwork.

All artwork created by me for Light the Land is freely accessible to distribute so long as the images are not used for individual profit in any way. I do request that anyone using an image link back to this blog so that people may learn more about these heroes and the international effort to protect living environmental activists.

There is also a facebook page where I share current news about environmental activists on the frontlines across the world.

I am slowly finishing portraits and creating new ones which I will share as completed. If you stumble across this blog and know of someone that I should include, please email me at sundewstudio@gmail.com

~Liz Peterson

For Submissions

Please spread awareness of this cause and blog, and contribute your own artwork! If you are interested in submitting a portrait or story to this blog, please email Liz at sundewstudio@gmail.com with a digital copy of your work. Also, please contact me if you see any errors, have any suggestions or any concerns about the content. I recognize that I am unfamiliar with all of the nuances and years of context involved in the situations I am describing, and am using news articles, blogs and NGO websites for my information. There is always a possibility of misinformation.