Tag Archives: First Nations

Natural | Supernatural: Nuu-chah-nulth Serigraph Prints from the University of Victoria’s Permanent Collection

Fall 2014 to Fall 2017

On the UVic campus at First Peoples House

Curated by Allison Grey Noble and Caroline Riedel

This exhibition of serigraph prints by artists Patrick Amos, Joe David, Ron Hamilton (Chuuchkamalthnii), Tim Paul, Art Thompson (Tsa-Qwass-Upp), and Glen Webster visually articulates knowledges of histories and stories that are important to the people of the Nuu-chah-nulth nations. These prints are from the university’s permanent collection and originate from the print making studio of Vincent Rickard, who worked with these artists in the 1980s and 1990s. Rickard and donors George and Christiane Smyth have given the university nearly 3,000 contemporary Northwest Coast prints, making UVic’s collection the most comprehensive in Canada.

Image: Supernatural, Joe David (Nuu-chah-nulth)

Out of the Frame: Salish Printmaking

poster-workingJune 8 to October 1, 2016

In collaboration with Wachiay Studio (Andy McDougall) and curated by Dr. Andrea N. Walsh.

Legacy Art Gallery Downtown | 630 Yates Street

Featuring work by Charles Elliott, Doug LaFortune, Angela Marston, Andy Everson, Maynard Johnny Jr., lessLIE, Chris Paul, and Dylan Thomas.

Coast Salish artists challenge ideas about printmaking by bringing the process of printing into relation with cultural traditions, personal experiences and the material world.

View the exhibition website here

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Celebration Event + Artist Roundtable

Out of the Frame: Salish Printmaking

Food + Refreshments Provided
Free + open to the public | *Please note seating is limited.

September 24, 1 – 4pm | Legacy Art Gallery Downtown | 630 Yates Street

An afternoon event featuring an artist roundtable discussion with the artists from Out of the Frame: Salish Printmaking on the role of printmaking in their practices and new directions for printing taken up in the exhibition. Discussion will be moderated by curator, Dr. Andrea Walsh. Featuring a guest talk reflecting on the production of prints by Salish artists given by independent scholar India Rael Young.

1-2pm – Welcome + talk by India Rael Young “The Visual Vernacular in a World of Prints”
2-2:15pm – Break – light refreshments
2:15-3:15pm – Artist roundtable
3:15–4pm – Celebration with the Tzinquaw Dancers

Out of the Frame artists are: Charles Elliott, Doug LaFortune, Angela Marston, Andy Everson, Maynard Johnny Jr., lessLIE, Chris Paul, and Dylan Thomas

India Rael Young is an Andrew W. Mellon Dissertation Fellow in Art History at the University of New Mexico. Young’s research addresses the history of contemporary Native and First Nations prints from the Northwest Coast. More broadly, Young’s interests lie in North American print media, and emerging modes of reproduction. Her curatorship and writing negotiate feminist, post-colonial, and critical race frameworks to expose the complex web of cultural underpinnings in the North American art world.

Emerging Through the Fog : Tsa-qwa-supp and Tlehpik – Together

FINAL posterFebruary 13, to May 28, 2016

Curated by Hjalmer Wenstob | With supervisory guidance from Williams Legacy Chair, Dr. Carolyn Butler-Palmer

Legacy Art Gallery Downtown 630 Yates Street
This is an exhibition of two Nuu-chah-nulth men, “Fog-God” Art Thompson from Ditidaht (1948-2003) and Hjalmer Wenstob from Tla-o-qui-aht. Two artists, two friends. Two lives together.

Featuring the prints and paintings of Art Thompson/Tsa-qwa-supp from the collection of the Legacy Art Galleries and interactive carvings by contemporary artist Hjalmer Wenstob/Tlehpik, whose work is inspired by and resonates with that of his teacher and friend Tsa-qwa-supp. Tsa-qwa-supp taught for many years and inspired a number of artists who continue his work in this day.

Emerging Through The Fog seeks to honour and commemorate the life and work of the dedicated teacher Tsa-qwa-supp on the occasion of Tlehpik’s B.F.A from the University of Victoria’s Visual Arts Department. We invite you to join us in celebrating the life of Tsa-qwa-supp, an inspiring and caring teacher.

Image (detail), Tlehpika, Hjalmer Wenstob.
INVITATION

unlimited edition

poster final with canada logoJuly 4 – September 26, 2015

Legacy Art Gallery Downtown 630 Yates Street

unlimited edition is organized by the Kamloops Art Gallery.

Curated by Tania Willard (Secwepemc), Aboriginal Curator in Residence, Kamloops Art Gallery

To view the exhibition catalogue, click here.

Kenojuak Ashevak, Inuit | Carl Beam, Ojibwe | Robert Davidson, Haida | Charles Greul | Chuuchkamalathnii, Nuu-chah-nulth | Mark Henderson, Kwakwaka’wakw | Richard Hunt, Kwakwaka’wakw | Ellen Neel, Kwakwaka’wakw | Pudlo Pudlat, Inuit | Daphne Odjig, Odawa-Potawatomi | Walter J Phillips | Bill Reid, Haida | Chief Henry Speck, Kwakwaka’wakw | Art Thompson, Nuu-chah-nulth | Art Wilson, Gitsxan
With artists from the University of Victoria Art Collection: Doug Cranmer, Kwakwaka’wakw | Joe David, Nuu-chah-nulth | Stan Greene, Coast Salish | Roy Henry Vickers, Tsimshian Haida heilstuk | Susan Point, Coast Salish
unlimited edition attempts to construct an art historical framework that looks at how prints by Aboriginal and Inuit artists represented in the Kamloops Art Gallery’s permanent collection, supplemented by works on loan from the Carleton University Art Gallery and Legacy Art Galleries, represent a drive to preserve, portray and popularize oral histories and address social inequities in the medium of printmaking. Featuring prints from Northwest Coast, Woodlands and Inuit artists with a focus on an early period of printmaking in the 50s through to the 70s, unlimited edition showcases prints that relate to ideas of cultural story, politics of land, and the beauty of Indigenous aesthetics.

Image Spirit Owl, Kenojuak Ashevak (Inuit), from Kenojuak Lithography series, 1979

CURATOR’S TALK /// Saturday, September 26, 2pm | Legacy Art Gallery Downtown 630 Yates Street /// Free & open to the public

This project is funded in part by the Government of Canada.

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Making A Scene! Victoria’s Artists in the 1960s

Gods of the Sun Dogs, Margaret Ellen, c. 1960

Gods of the Sun Dogs, Margaret Ellen, c. 1960

April 2 – June 27, 2015

Legacy Art Gallery Downtown

Curated by Emerald Johnstone-Bedell

The 1960s marked the emergence of a vibrant contemporary art scene in Victoria. Events such as the BC centennial celebrations and Expo ’67 foregrounded regional and national artistic production, and the newly formed Canada Council for the Arts around a source of financial support to practicing artists. The politically charged spirit of the time, born out of war experiences and social justice movements, generated a desire for change and experimentation. This included artistic movements towards anti-hierarchial approaches inclusive of applied and non-Western art.

This show brought together ceramics, film, printmaking, painting, and sculpture to give visitors a glimpse of what the art scene of the 1960s would have looked like. Making a Scene! also highlighted the importance of growing institutions and movements of the 60s like the budding University of Victoria Art Collection, the birth of the Limners group, and the establishment of rights for First Nations artists.

View the exhibition website here

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Similar Exhibitions:

Salish Reflection: Coast Salish Art and Artists on Campus

Conservation, Chris Paul

Conservation, Chris Paul

August 15, 2014 – January 10, 2015

Legacy Small Gallery

Curated in collaboration by Caroline Riedel, Justine Auben Drummond & Dr. Andrea Walsh

This exhibition honours Coast Salish artists Chris Paul, Maynard Johnny Jr., and knitters May Sam and the Olsen family (Adam, Joni, and their mother Sylvia) who were part of the University of Victoria’s Visiting Artist Program through the Department of Anthropology between 2011 and 2013. During their 3 month residency they taught students about their own artistic practices as well as aspects of Coast Salish history and contemporary culture. The exhibit illustrates the teaching methodology and experience of students and artists in collaboration along with examples of the artists’ work.

The Artist in Residence Program is facilitated by Dr. Andrea Walsh, who teaches the Anthropology of Art, and the program is supported by donors George and Christiane Smyth.

Perpetual Salish: Contemporary Coast Salish Art from the Salish Weave Collection

 

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wHOle_W(((h)))orl(((d))). lesLIE

August 15, 2014 – January 10, 2015

Legacy Art Gallery Downtown

Curated by lessLIE

View the online catalogue:

Perpetual Salish – Catalogue

In this exhibition the theme of perpetuation unifies the work of five contemporary Coast Salish artists who live and work in this region. The word perpetuation is meant to suggest a continuum of ideas and processes, which come from distinctive traditions that have existed over millennia. Perpetuation also infers some of the challenges that contemporary Coast Salish artists continue to face in the contexts of colonialism and assimilation as well as the dominance of other Indigenous traditions, which were often favoured by the art world, in both commercial and educational contexts. It is only in the last three decades that Coast Salish art has become more readily recognized by a wider audience as distinct from other Northwest Coast traditions.

This exhibition presents a wide range of art forms and ideas, and visitors will gain a better understanding of the cultural and stylistic elements that unify and inspire these contemporary artists in their own artistic practices. Artists featured are Maynard Johnny Jr., lessLIE, John Marston, Susan Point and Dylan Thomas.

Watch the video:

Adaslā: The Movement of Hands

Sewing button blankets at First Peoples House. Photo by Michael Glendale

Sewing button blankets at First Peoples House. Photo by Michael Glendale

January 16 – April 25 2014

Legacy Art Gallery Downtown

This exhibition centres around the creation and exhibition of the World’s Biggest Button Blanket. Created over the fall 2013 academic term, in collaboration with students at UVic’s First Peoples House, the blanket invites new conversations about indigenous button blanket makers and the artistic traditions that surround them. A project of the Williams Legacy Chair in Modern and Contemporary Art of the Pacific Northwest.

For more info about the Big Button Blanket click here

Honoris Causa: University of Victoria First Nations Artist Honourands

Henry Hunt, Kwagiulth Chief and Frog

Henry Hunt, Kwagiulth Chief and Frog

February 2014

First Peoples House at the University of Victoria

Curated by Emerald Johnstone-Bedell

Twice yearly at convocation the University of Victoria awards honorary degrees to those who have demonstrated distinguished and extraordinary achievements. During its 50-year history UVic has granted honours to seven First Nations artists who have contributed not only to the arts but also to the community at large as leaders, activists, visionaries, role models, and groundbreakers. This exhibition features works from the University of Victoria’s art collection and an excerpt from the citation that was read at the occasion of granting the degree.

Coalescence: Bridging Contemporeneity & Tradition

Richard Hunt, An Eagle [and golf course]

Richard Hunt, An Eagle [and golf course]

August 28 – November 18, 2013

Legacy Maltwood (at the Mearns Centre – McPherson Library)

Curated by Emerald Johnstone-Bedell and Lesley Golding

This exhibition at the Maltwood Prints and Drawings Gallery offers an in-depth look at the work of five contemporary Northwest Coast artists: Francis Dick, Charles Elliott, Richard Hunt, Tim Paul and Moy Sutherland. Drawing on works from the University of Victoria’s extensive Northwest Coast print collection, this exhibition demonstrates how the artists use traditional stylistic elements and cultural references to express contemporary experience.

These five artists represent the three main culture groups of Vancouver Island: Coast Salish, Nuu-chah-nulth and Kwakwaka’wakw and were selected for their innovative work as well as their longstanding influential relationships with both the university and the local community.

Highlights of the exhibition include Richard Hunt’s An Eagle [and golf course], which injects both humour and unexpected imagery into a traditional formline composition, and Francis Dick’s Comes a Woman, which addresses female spirituality. Additional themes include environmentalism, the Christian faith, cultural revival, commercialization, mentorship and personal relationships. The prints are accompanied by quotes from the artist providing insight into the inspiration and creative process associated with the work.

To Reunite To Honour To Witness

Phyllis Tate, Untitled (1959)

Phyllis Tate, Untitled (1959)

May 8 – June 15, 2013

Legacy Art Gallery Downtown

Curated by Dr. Robina Thomas and Dr. Andrea N. Walsh

The vibrant and powerful paintings in this exhibition were created by children who attended the Alberni Indian Residential School in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The works were created in an extra-curricular art class run by artist Robert Aller.

Over 50 years later, residential school survivors who attended the school and created these paintings are working together with UVic faculty and staff to document the role of art in residential schools through individual stories and works of art.

The paintings in this exhibition provide an exceptional and rare opportunity to witness the power of children’s creativity during residential schooling, when their voices were actively silenced by assimilationist government policies. The exhibition asks viewers to consider the role of this art today at a time when Canada is attempting reconciliation around this history with Indigenous peoples.

Understanding Place in Culture: Serigraphs and Transmission of Cultural Knowledge

Francis Dick, The Dragon
Francis Dick, The Dragon

October 18, 2012 – January 28, 2013

Legacy Maltwood (at Mearns Centre – McPherson Library)

Curated by Shelby Richardson

The Understanding Place in Culture online catalogue is available here. It features a curatorial essay, numerous works of art and information about the artists.

Museums and other educational institutions are often seen as sites of privileged knowledge production, spaces that have often excluded minority perspectives and realities. This exhibition presents a selection of prints from the George and Christiane Smyth and Vincent Rickard Northwest Coast Print collection that focus on representations of place and Indigenous knowledge production. The perspectives represented by these artists challenge the hegemonic practices of institutions, such as museums, by positioning the artists as the ethnographic authorities on their cultural expressions and knowledge.