Book Review: Ancestral Portraits

Page 15

Ancestral Portraits

The Color of My People

By Frederick R. McDonald

University of Calgary Press

105 pages, 61 color reproductions (sc)

$29.95

This first book by Alberta Cree artist and writer Frederick R. McDonald is a multi-layered offering that weaves together the artist's life, travels, and personal reflections in prose, poetry and painting.

McDonald is a conservative writer who embraces Native spirituality and Christianity and straddles the rails in his views about 'getting along' with the dominant culture while celebrating his own rich Woodland Cree culture.

His stories and poems take a firm middle ground, not dwelling on pain and past injustice, but on the job of getting on with everyday life.

Where McDonald really braves up and spills his guts is in his paintings, reproduced in all their bold glory throughout Ancestral Portraits.

The job of a great artist is pretty simple: get there before the rest of us and shock us out of our complacency. With a palette as rich and vibrant as the culture he paints, McDonald takes a strong, in-your-face stance in his work.

This artist is full of gusto. He's alive and kicking up his heels, stomping out gauzy romanticism and airbrushed Hollywood stereotypes. His bold combinations of image and pigment have created a resonant new language in the Canadian art scene.

He calls them 'The Color of My People' canvases that are strong and vibrant enough to dance on. His portraits include such famous subjects as Elvis, Chief Dan George, Riel and Sitting Bull. His settings are the fields and forests, streams and lakes that are home to his family in northern Alberta.

We meet Elders, warriors, children, animal helpers and ancestral spirits with real and powerful connections to the earth, sky, sun, moon and starry night.They are at home in their own world, on their own terms, past and present.

McDonald's first book is to be recommended as a decent read and a real visual tour de force.

Review by Pam Sexsmith