Mischief Makers

Xiuhtezcatl (shoe-TEZ-caht) Martinez, 2020

acrylic on panel  
36 x 24 in

Joan was looking for a young face to represent the new generation of American environmental activists and found it in Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, the Native American youth director of the worldwide conservation organization Earth Guardians.

Describing himself as a “long-haired kid with the unpronounceable name,” Martinez gave three TED talks when he was still a teenager and burst onto the international stage with a sensational 2015 speech to the United Nations General Assembly, delivering it in English, Spanish and his native language, Nahuatl. In celebration of Martinez’s Aztec heritage, Joan painted the background of his portrait in an Aztec design

He is one of the young defendants in Juliana v. the United States, a lawsuit against the American government for its inaction on climate change. Now 20, he lives in boulder, Colorado, and has worked to ban fracking in his state, to clean up pesticides in parks and to control the spread of coal ash.

A hip-hop artist, he performs with his brother and sister as the Earth Guardians, spreading their message of social and environmental change to other young people through songs like “What the Frack” and “Speak for the Trees,” both on their debut album “Generation Ryse.”

“This is the way I resist, the way I use my voice and fight for a world we can believe in,” he says. “Nothing can stop a revolution inspired by love and justice, and communicated through passion and art.”

In 2018, he released his first solo album, “Break Free,” dedicating it to “the people of the world facing the greatest struggles of our times.”

“These are songs of movements, pain, loss, life, love, and the world,” he says. “I’m telling my story using music that people will be able to relate to. I want this music to inspire you, to wake people up, make you dance and show you that hip hop can be a tool for creating change.” Already in his young life as an activist, he has received the U.S. Volunteer Service Award from President Barack Obama and the Generational Change Award from MTV Europe. He has also been included in Rolling Stone’s “25 under 25” list of young people who will change the world.