Art exhibit challenges gallery-goers to think

The Deadly Lady Art Triumvarite exhibit at Contemporary Calgary, formerly the Art Gallery of Calgary, is unique in the manner of its creation and its multi-faceted themes.

Running until May 4, the 11 pieces in the exhibit incorporate traditional elements of Aboriginal spirituality and the text of original historical documents in mixed media installations that include wood, tarp, blanket, beads, sculpture, animal skins, and branches. The intersecting themes of the works have multiple reference points, many of which point back to language, history, culture and the creation, suppression and obscuring of Aboriginal identity.

When Kayleigh Hall, curator of the exhibit invited Aboriginal artists Tanya Harnett, Amy Malbeuf and Brittney Bear Hat to occupy the space for three months, the approach was open and spontaneous.

“It was a sandbox approach,” said Hall. “They were invited to play in the space.”

Many of the works were organized beforehand, but created on site. The pieces are thought-provoking and evocative, presenting one side that draws the viewer close, with other less tangible aspects waiting to be discovered. The pieces “urge people to pay attention, to search for something,” said Hall.

The residency idea began with all three artists, originally from Alberta, meeting by email. Harnett, an educator from the Department of Native American Studies at the University of Lethbridge and senior artist, worked with emerging artists Malbeuf and Bear Hat. When tossing around names for their Facebook page, the artists came up with the Deadly Lady Art Triumvarite. Despite the exhibit’s name, Hall said that the themes that emerge are less about Aboriginal women and more about Aboriginal people and the wider social and political themes in the creation of identity that emerge from the show.

Hall sees the exhibit as moving from a macro to a micro level, from actual historical documents of political and social significance to the exploration of personal family identity in Bear Hat’s works. At a point of entry to the exhibit fog pours out on a ceremonious image of burning lemon grass and sage projected on a suspended silk cloth.

For her focal piece titled Jimmie Durham 1974, 2014, Malbeuf used blue tarp framed with tree branches as her canvas upon which over 8,000 glass blue beads form the text of activist Durham’s protest piece.

Elements from nature run throughout the pieces creating curious juxtapositions that invite thought. Hall sees these references as capturing “the dysfunction between humanity and the natural landscape.”

Malbeuf’s installation of animal pelts strung up was originally presented in a park in Edmonton. The piece is tactile, drawing the viewer in until the backside is viewed; each pelt has a safety vest on the reverse. The relationship between the two sides forms a point of intellectual inquiry.

For her piece titled, The Bargain, 2014, Harnett’s canvas is a crimson four-point Hudson’s Bay blanket on which she has scripted word for word in felt pen the Dekis Treaty of 1655 of unknown origin given to her by an Elder from the Cold Lake area. The language sets out the manner of relationship between the settlers and the Aboriginal people.

Bear Hat’s found image of a photo of her great grandfather Running Rabbit, a signatory of Treaty 7 in 1877, rests alongside the text of the Treaty itself.

The melding of historical documents and traditional Aboriginal culture and spirituality in the exhibit ultimately queries the construction of Aboriginal identity in contemporary society.

“The artists are breaking down stereotypes, investigating popular representations of being Indigenous, how people see them, how they see themselves, especially when family history is lost,” said Hall.

Photo caption: This is the problem by Tanya Harnett one of the pieces in the Deadly Lady Art Triumvarite exhibit at Contemporary Calgary.