Carleton University Art Gallery (CUAG) is delighted to congratulate Robert Houle, winner of a 2015 Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts. Houle was co-nominated by Sandra Dyck, director, Carleton University Art Gallery and Barry Ace (Odawa), visual artist.
“Robert Houle is one of Canada’s most important contemporary artists,” Dyck and Ace stated. “His work has indelibly shaped Aboriginal and Western art histories, in Canada and internationally. Over the last forty years, he has forged a distinctly Aboriginal visual language, reframing the language of modernism to be inclusive of Anishinaabeg perspectives.”
Born in St. Boniface, Man., Houle was raised in the community of Sandy Bay First Nation, north of Winnipeg. He came of age as an artist in the 1980s, a critical decade during which he and his peers, including Carl Beam and Joane Cardinal Schubert, argued that the terms “Aboriginal” and “contemporary” were not mutually exclusive, and that their work should not be relegated to anthropology or ethnology museums.
Houle’s work is characterized by aesthetic restraint, intellectual rigour and deep empathy. It is influenced by his deep knowledge of Anishinaabeg practices of abstraction, seen in such arts as quillwork and beading, and from his research into Western art history. Houle melds these diverse influences in the charting of new territory, at once personal and political, and rendered in his signature brilliant palette.
Houle explored his home/land in an important early work, The place where the gods live (1989), comprised of four stunning oil paintings. The title is the English translation of the Anishinaabemowin word for the Narrows of Lake Manitoba, a sacred place for nearby Anishinaabeg. The paintings beautifully evoke Houle’s prairie home, while underscoring the profound importance of land as the source of and site for his spirituality and identity.
In Houle’s monumental and iconic Kanata (1992), he reframes Benjamin West’s painting The Death of General Wolfe (1770), which depicts the British general’s death in 1759 on the Plains of Abraham. In Houle’s redrawing of West’s composition, the clothing of the Delaware warrior is vividly coloured; the rest of the dramatic scene pales in comparison. Framed on left and right by brilliant panels of blue and red acrylic to create a configuration recalling the French flag, Kanata is a compelling critique of the premise of Canada’s two founding nations, a mythology that excludes First Nations.
In another major work, Premises for Self Rule (1994), Houle addresses Aboriginal self-determination and land-based law. Each work in the series juxtaposes a large, brilliantly-coloured abstract painting with an excerpt from a legal or treaty text, for example the Royal Proclamation of 1763. This constitutionally-entrenched proclamation, which promises First Nations that any land not sold or ceded by them to European settlers is reserved for their use, is a critically important piece of legislation used to assert Aboriginal ownership in contemporary land claims cases. Houle approaches this highly political topic with his characteristic subtlety and openness.
Houle’s major installation Paris/Ojibwa was featured in Sakahàn: International Indigenous Art (2013) at the National Gallery of Canada. In this piece, Houle explores the history of a Mississauga dance troupe who travelled to Europe in 1845. Houle created a to-scale, Parisian-style salon with faux marble floors and paneled walls inset with his poignant portraits of four of the dancers, who died in Europe of smallpox. Each dancer is portrayed from behind, gazing upon an expansive prairie landscape.
Houle’s most recent, and very personal, work was precipitated by a visit he made to his home in Sandy Bay. He had earlier addressed the topic of residential school in his amazing work Sandy Bay (1998-99), the making of which unearthed memories of the trauma he had suffered there. His decision in 2009 to again confront this subject resulted in the Sandy Bay Indian Residential School series—profoundly devastating drawings and paintings that demonstrate the power of art to give material form to experiences which words alone cannot express.
His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston, Governor General of Canada, will present the awards on April 8 at Rideau Hall in Ottawa. Visit the Canada Council’s website to view photos, biographies and images of the winners’ work along with short videos of each recipient, made by award-winning filmmakers from across Canada.
Funded and administered by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts (including the Saidye Bronfman Award) recognize distinguished career achievements in the visual and media arts by Canadian artists, as well as outstanding contributions through voluntarism, philanthropy, board governance, community outreach or professional activities.
Media contacts:
Heather McAfee
Public Relations Officer
Canada Council for the Arts
(613) 566-4414, ext. 4166 or 613-218-0066 (cell)
heather.mcafee@canadacouncil.ca
Chris Cline
Media Relations Officer
Carleton University
613-520-2600, ext. 1391
christopher_cline@carleton.ca
To arrange interviews with Robert Houle:
Geneviève Blouin, Genesis PR
(514) 887-8187
gen@genesispr.com
Tuesday, March 24, 2015 in News Releases
Share: Twitter, Facebook
