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Copper Thunderbird
Canada’s National Gallery of Art is currently exhibiting the work of Norval Morrisseau (b. March 13, 1931), an Ojibwa (Anishnaabe) artist who has come to be known in Canada as “the Picasso of the North.�
Last Sunday afternoon, my friend, Peter Feldman, and I spent a couple of hours gazing in awe at Morrisseau’s collected works. When one visits a gallery of this stature, one expects a first-rate experience. For me, this exhibit surpassed any reasonable standards of excellence. It was one of those experiences I will take with me into old age and infirmity.
This marks the first solo exhibition of a First Nations artist mounted by Canada's National Gallery. Such an event may have been overdue, but it is a momentous start. Organized chronologically, the exhibit reveals the artist’s technical development, the evolution of his iconography, his usage of color, and chronicles his personal spiritual journey. The exhibit is beautifully mounted, and the didactic panels and audio guide materials are exquisite, principally because they are not overdone.
Morrisseau was born into a line of “tent-shaking� shamans. Raised by his grandfather, Moses " Potan" Nanakonagos, who was himself a Ojibwa-speaking shaman, Morrisseau early-on learned the myths, legends, and religious traditions of his people. As a result of his paintings, the young Morrisseau suffered censure and ostracism from his people because he revealed secrets, violated ancient taboos, and depicted stories that had only theretofore been passed along orally from shaman to shaman.
I am incapable of understanding what Morrisseau’s pictorial revelations of Ojibwa shamanism means, but I am grateful for what I have been blessed to see. Like other artists who are able to access their spiritual selves, Morrisseau’s work transcends exquisite rendering of the real. He paints interiors – the guts of joy and despair, not their glossy visage.
In his struggles with alcohol and drugs - and having survived homeless on the streets of Vancouver not that long ago - Norval Morrisseau has met and vanquished more demons than most of us will ever know. It is inconceivable that, at times, he would sell his works for as little as $100. These events befell a man who was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1970 and awarded the Order of Canada in 1978.
I found some of his works reminiscent of Bosch in how he portrayed the comic, the ribald, and the chaotic. Morrisseau renders the unremarkable as memorable and suggests that the memorable will surely decay.
Among the many works I experienced, I particularly treasure my memory of the Indian Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the six-panel Transformation of Man into Thunderbird.
Knowing that Morrisseau was physically and sexually abused in the Catholic residential school in which he grew up and was educated, I cannot help but be amazed that his spiritual awakening was not brutalized beyond redemption by these events. The strength and vibrance of his imagery convinces that the possibility of redemption and healing through art – as Morrisseau so vividly demonstrates – is not beyond those who open themselves to its possibilities.
Posted on February 22, 2006 07:00 AM | Permalink
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Comments
Neill,
Thanks so much for making this a daily blog. Reading your entries (along with all the other blogs that I keep up with) is a perfect way to start the day with some fresh thoughts and inspiration.
The Morrisseau exhibition is truly a triumph in many ways. The work inspires and challenges; the curating is intelligent but not didactic; the Gallery is at last paving the way for Aboriginal artists; and Morrisseau himself is finally receiving the acclaim he deserves. This show is definitely not tokenism which shows like this are often dismissed as.
As sideline, I think it is worth mentioning that the Mackenzie Art Gallery in Regina was the first public art gallery to hire a full-time Aboriginal curator a few years ago. They continue to be leaders in Native art.
Again, thanks for giving us this blog, Neill.
Shawn