Lastenia Canayo, also known as Pecon Quena in the Shipibo-Konibo language, was born in 1962 and raised in the native community of Roroboya, on the banks of the lower Ucayali River. Her name in the Shipibo language means 'the one who calls the colors', and refers to her artistic skills for the painting, textiles and ceramics she produces. She currently lives and works from her home in Pucallpa with her children and close family.
In 2000, Pequen Quena and other mothers from various Amazonian communities were invited by historian Pablo Macera to Lima, in order to share and paint the stories they told to their daughters. Pecon shared more than five hundred stories about the spirits that protect plants and animals.
Her paintings have gained international recognition and were selected among a number of works by other Amazonian artists and artisans for a competition sponsored by UNESCO. This new artistic creation, very valuable and original, can be considered as the heritage of an ancient artistic tradition and animist culture, a rare talent and imagination.
Among Lastenia's artistic creations are the "Dueños", a series of paintings, which tell us about the spirits of the animals and plants of the Shipibo-Konibo world. She calls them yoshin (an evil spirit) and ibo (a good spirit). Through her paintings, Lastenia has the vision to show that each plant and animal has a protector to safeguard the forest. She learned about nature and their owners from her grandparents, who told her that to heal or do something you have to ask permission from the spirits of the plants and they in turn offer you their water. Between 2004-2007 she went on a diet with two master plants; paico and ayahuma, after which she began to paint more and more.
The library of the owners of Pecon Quena contains more than two hundred different character. In 2014 he began working with clay to create the characters in three-dimensional form. She has various publications including, Dueños de las plantas (Lima, 2002), with the collaboration of Javier Macera; and los dueños del mundo shipibo (Lima, 2004), with Pablo Macera.
In a conversation with Pecon Quena, she talks about her beginnings and inspiration for painting:
"When I was sick, I mean, my grandparents cured me with a plant from the jungle (...) and so, each time they cured me. Based on that, I said, when they cured me, now I am going to do a diet, I mean fasting, right, and when I was healing well, I started to dream, I saw, I mean, like guardians, I saw in my dreams. Well, I am going to try to paint what I am looking at and every time I was cured with that plant I dreamed, that is what I saw in my dreams, and I began to paint on canvas. What are you painting? they told me, I am learning to paint, I told them, I am painting from my imagination, they asked me (...) They used to cure me when I was a child, I did not think it was like that, now I am old enough, now I am going to paint more, to learn more.
Some plants that are very good, they talk, they speak to us, some that are also bad, they don't want to talk to us, they don't want to teach us anything (...) But when it is legitimate for such a disease it teaches us. The plants talk to us, they don't teach us, for example: something you want to learn, they tell you - "this is how you are going to be, this is how you are going to cure, this is how you are going to prepare, this is how you have to do it, they tell us, right? Our imagination also helped us. Peqon Quena, 2023.
Plants, as carriers of knowledge and healing, are essential in Pecon Quena's artistic works. From a very young age, her close relationship with plants has imbued her creations with the essence and manifestation of her culture.
Xapiri Ground has maintained a close relationship with Pecon Quena for more than five years, through the sale of art and support of her family. In October 2021, we hosted a 3-month exhibition of her paintings "El Mundo de los Dueños", followed by a workshop where participants were able to paint their own individual dueño and contribute to an even larger canvas mural containing multiple dueños. These types of events allow us to create a cross-cultural exchange through the arts with our community and the communities we support throughout the Peruvian Amazon.
