Manuel Axel Strain Unsettling Perspectives: Subverting the Colonial GazeDowntown Eastside Centre for the Arts January 9 – 26, 2019 I love checking out little art shows around Vancouver, and last night I got the chance to see one at the Downtown Eastside Centre for the Arts for the first time. Manuel Axel Strain is an…
Category: First Nations
Top 10 Art Finds of 2018
With only a few days left in 2018, I find myself looking back on all the blog posts I didn’t write, dozens of incredible art finds that I didn’t share with you, and photos I never posted. But my regret won’t get you those photos, so instead I’m going to jam my 10 favourites into…
Dana Claxton: Fringing the Cube
Dana Claxton: Fringing the Cube Vancouver Art Gallery October 27, 2018 – February 3, 2019 About ten minutes into the media preview for Dana Claxton: Fringing the Cube at the Vancouver Art Gallery, curator Grant Arnold turned to Claxton to ask her about one of her performance pieces. As she started talking I realized she…
Vancouver Indigenous Fashion Week
A Dream Becomes a Reality Rumour has it that Vancouver Indigenous Fashion Week has been nine years in the making. That’s a long time to have a dream, and Joleen Mitton, the brain child behind it, finally realized that dream this year with the support of an amazing team. I had the opportunity to chat…
An Evening with Susan Point at the Vancouver Art Gallery
Since I had been to see Susan Point‘s exhibit, “Spindle Whorl” at the Vancouver Art Gallery four times already, I was thrilled when I received an invitation to accompany Kenji Nagai, art photographer, to the private event at the Vancouver Art Gallery featuring Susan Point herself. Being an amateur photographer myself, I had the chance…
Audain: The Museum in the Trees
The weather was bipolar that day, which was fitting for my Gemini birthday. The drive up to Whistler was sunny and beautiful but as I ran up to the Audain Art Museum, I held my jean jacket over my head to avoid the rain. Before I reached the building though, it had stopped again and…
Colouring Outside the Formline
From the first time I saw Steve Smith‘s work at the Vancouver International Airport, I knew he was not a traditionalist. In a documentary by Fred Cawsey about the artist and the installations at YVR, Steve says: “My interest isn’t really to do traditional native art … I’m trying to do native art in a way…
5 Things I Love About Susan Point’s Show, Spindle Whorl
Strong women, it seems, are everywhere. It may just be that I need to see them now more than ever, and so my eyes are watching, waiting for the next bit of inspiration and reminder that I am a blessed species. With Women’s Day just last Wednesday the Susan Point Exhibit at the Vancouver Art…
First Nations Artists Honoured by the BC Achievement Foundation
“The fact that everyone was calling it a luncheon tipped me off right away. They don’t call it that where I come from! I knew I couldn’t wear jeans like I had to the formal opening at the Bill Reid Gallery” On November 15th, 2016 the BC Achievement Foundation celebrated six First Nations Artists with…
Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun Teaches with Humour
“The monumental pieces almost fool you into the illusion that you have stepped back in time and are seeing the ‘traditional’ life of First Nations People of BC.” Walking into the Museum of Anthropology at the University of BC is a little bit like walking into a parallel universe. A place that Yuxweluptun used to…
YVR’s Jade Canoe Turns Twenty
On a beautiful sunny day in April, YVR celebrated 20 years since the Spirit of Haida Gwaii, The Jade Canoe arrived at the YVR airport. Bill Reid originally had the sculpture created as a 1/6 scale clay model and then later enlarged to its full size. This final clay version was then cast in bronze and…
New Art at The YVR Airport by Haida Artist Reg Davidson
I walk by them every day at work. As I pass the entrance to the skytrain on the left and the Air Canada USA check ins on the right, I can see them only partially on the other side of security. The effect is breathtaking. The red paint on wood seems to almost glow…
Little City Arts 