Bunky Echo–Hawk (born 1975) is a Native American artist and poet who is best known for his acrylic paintings concerning Native American topics and hip-hop culture. He works in a variety of media that include paintings, graphic design, photography, and writing.
Walter Roy "Bunky" Echo–Hawk Jr.[1] is a descendant of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma, and an enrolled citizen of the Yakama Nation.[2] He attended the Institute of American Indian Arts in the 1990s. He served as the "co-founder and the Executive Director of NVision, a national Native nonprofit that focuses on Native youth development,"[3] and he is also a traditional singer and dancer.[4] In 2020, Echo-Hawk was featured in the PBS series American Masters for his work on Native rights and environmentalism.[5]
Scholar Olena McLaughlin, writing in the journal Transmotion, categorizes Echo-Hawk's work as follows: "Although it is within the stream of Native Pop, Echo-Hawk's work leans more towards Pop Surrealism or Lowbrow, a movement that emerged in the 1970s after Pop Art. It engages popular culture, but in a more concrete story-telling way with slightly less ambiguity."[6] In 2011 and beyond, Echo-Hawk collaborated with Nike to develop Native-inspired apparel through their N-7 and Power of Perseverance Collection.[7]
On October 16, 2021, Echo-Hawk was injured and his 15-year-old daughter Alexie was killed in a head-on crash early morning, as they were driving to the Pawnee Nation for a ceremonial tribal dance in Oklahoma.[8]
On January 10, 2022, Bunky Echo-Hawk was arrested for "lewd or indecent acts to children under 16."[1] A young girl reported to a Pawnee County DHS worker that "she was repeatedly touched inappropriately by Echo-Hawk, 46, between 'from the time she was 7 or 8 until 11 or 12 years old'."[1] His preliminary hearing was scheduled for March 15, 2022.[1]
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