Tehatsistahawi (Tsista) Kennedy (born 2001) is an Anishinaabe and Onyota’a:ka woodland-style artist belonging to Beausoleil First Nation and Oneida Nation of the Thames, based on Christian Island, ON. He is a self-taught artist, working primarily in digital art with softwares like Procreate and Adobe Illustrator. Outside of digital art, Kennedy also creates original works through birch bark etching, and recently has been experimenting with loom beading.

Kennedy’s love for creating art began in his early childhood, where he would often doodle on classwork or blank pieces of printer paper. At the age of 14, Tsista created his first woodland-style piece. Since then, he has continued developing a variation of the style unique to himself. 

Kennedy’s work is intertwined with his experiences from the wooden world he navigates, as well as the traditional aspects of his Anishinaabe and Onyota’a:ka identity. Pop-culture, humour, stories, irony, the land, and political commentary; these are all common themes Tsista explores in his work. Whether Tsista is reciting personal experiences or cultural stories in his art, his hope is that the viewer leaves the artwork having learned something, or at the very least had the opportunity to see the world through his eyes.

His recent mural commissions include a large permanent installation for the City of Toronto at the Ethennonnhawahstihnen’ Community Recreation Centre and Library (unveiled 2025), and a mural for the University of Waterloo’s Dana Porter Library. In 2025, Tsista presented his first solo exhibition, He Carries Fire, at the Midland Cultural Centre’s Gallery of Indigenous Art (January-March), featuring work that explored his experiences living off-grid in a canvas tent for two years.