The Day All Whales Shall Vanish Diptych (AP)

Oda's diptych takes its title from a future she worked through art and activism to prevent: the extinction of the world's whale species under sustained commercial hunting pressure. This artist's proof impression — printed outside the numbered edition — likely features one of her rounded goddess figures in relationship with one or more whales, the ocean providing the compositional ground for both. Oda's color in marine subjects tends toward deep blues and blue-greens, with the figure rendered in warm tones that assert her presence against the sea's expanse. The woodblock medium connects her to a long Japanese tradition of depicting the ocean — from Hokusai's wave studies to later meisho-e — while her subject matter reorients that tradition toward contemporary ecological concern. The diptych format amplifies the ocean's scale across two panels.