My Breath, My Gravity: My Anishinabe Indexical Opens, Pops and Riffs

The paintings in this installation are presented in four distinct groupings. Five large works are hung low on the wall; a stack of paintings on paper are placed on a table as a hands-on viewer friendly archive; smaller works on canvas are stored in a small structure that suggests both a cedar house and a storage rack; and lastly three small works on canvas lean against the wall near the cedar house. In these works I explore how First Nations subjectivity can inhabit painting as an index of my presence inscribed through repetitive vertical lines I call “opens,” “pops,” and “riffs.” For me, vertical lines, repeating gesture and luminous colour contrasts indicate First Nations presence, memory and connections to the greater social world.