Unknown Anishinaabe artist

Necklace with Bear Claws, c. late 19th-early 20th century

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This necklace was worn by Tekahionwake (called Miss E. Pauline Johnson in English), an English/Mohawk performer and writer from the Six Nations Indian Reserve outside Brantford, Ontario.

(Source: images.rom.on.ca)

William Kurelek

Map of Canada, 1975

(Source: consignor.ca)

David Lloyd Blackwood

Loss of the Flora Nickerson, 1993

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“I first encountered the etchings of David Blackwood in the late 1970s and was riveted by them. He has made an unparalleled contribution to Canadian visual culture by creating an iconography of Newfoundland which resonates even more strongly with the passage of time.”

- Katharine Lochnan

(Source: waddingtons.ca)

Joanne Tod

Miss Lily Jeanne Randolphe, 1984

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From the National Gallery of Canada

Joanne Tod chose to use paint as her medium in the mid-1970s and continues to work as a painter. She received her fine arts education at the Ontario College of Art in Toronto from 1970 to 1974. She works on a grand scale: her figurative works tend toward high illusionism, displaying brilliant hues. Through her paintings, she has consistently been critical of the status the medium has held in art history.

The most common subjects in her paintings have been women and interiors. Various arrangements of these have allowed her to comment on the ironies of image, power, and glamour in our culture.

(Source: sothebys.com)

FASTWÜRMS

Chew or Die, 1987

(Source: googleartproject.com)

John Will, I Wish I Were You, 1992

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“When I entered his studio, I was shocked at what I beheld. What was left were a dozen or so paintings on which were the kind of words that one might see on the walls of a toilet stall or in a national newspaper. The idea that these things might appear on a gallery wall appalled me.” - Chris Cran, FFWD Magazine (2001)

(Source: ulag.ca)

Jeff Thomas, The Delegate Visits Indian Battle Park, 2008

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This work is from Thomas’ Indians on Tour series. On his website he explains:

“The Indians on Tour series expands on the street photographer aesthetic, but from a First-Nations perspective. Would that tradition expand or stay the same? I realized that it could not stay the same if I was going to be able to address the urban Aboriginal experience. The series began to take shape after I received a box in the mail from my friend Ali Kazimi. Inside was a set of plastic Indian figures with a note suggesting that I would find something interesting to do with them. Bear [Thomas’ son] had just moved to the British Columbia and I was left without my muse. I began experimenting with the toy Indians by posing them in my everyday world to see what would happen.”

(Source: ulag.ca)

Mattiusi Iyaituk

My Mother Talks about Caribou, 2005

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Iyaituk is an Inuit sculptor who worked as a police officer until a Canada Council grant allowed him to pursue art full-time. Iyaituk is renowned for the modern qualities of his abstracted works, although he notes,

“My work is in both worlds because the abstract forms I use are considered by many to be a modern way of doing art but I combine the abstract forms with the old Inuit technique of inlaying.”

The above work is a portrait of Iyaituk’s blind mother, Lucy, whom he credits for teaching him to be imaginative.

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(Happy Mother’s Day everyone)

(Source: mbam.qc.ca)

torontodesign:

awesome

(Source: jasonfitzzz)

eyesthebye:

A video of me telling one of my oldest true stories

“How I became a Peripheral Visionary”

Told at UMI Cafe  May 3  2013

This is great!