The exhibition Revolution in the Rock Garden presents a focused survey of the compelling political, spiritual, and provocative work of Saskatchewan, Métis artist Edward Poitras, created over the course of his highly respected four-decade artistic career. Poitras envisions this exhibition project as a series of “Treaty Four Art Actions”, which will play out in four acts or parts at four different locations. These “art actions” will involve Poitras, in collaboration with the gallery curators, revisiting and re-contextualizing his past works, as well as including new works, which address the colonial history and impact of Treaty Four.

The work presented spans the course of Poitras’ career from the late 1970s to the present, being derived from public and private collections across Canada, as well as from the artist’s personal collection. Poitras’ work consistently engages visually and conceptually with issues pertaining to the Treaties, colonialism, post-colonialism, cultural identity and place, spirituality, language loss, storytelling, and the rewriting of history, as well as reflecting on processes towards Truth and Reconciliation.

For four decades in Canada, many Indigenous artists have challenged prevailing notions of a master narrative in the historical development of this country. Edward Poitras has been, and continues to be, in the forefront of this.  As a Métis artist, living on George Gordon First Nation in Saskatchewan, from a Métis (French/Cree) father and a Saulteaux mother, and who belongs to a distinctive third culture, Poitras’ work blends the strategies, iconographies and formal vocabularies of European art with those of Indigenous art, spirituality and culture.

About the Artist

Edward Poitras was born in 1953 in Regina, Saskatchewan and is a member of the Gordon First Nation. He studied with Sarain Stump at the Saskatchewan Indian Cultural College in Saskatoon (1974) and then with Mexican Aboriginal artist Domingo Cisneros at Manitou College in La Macaza, Quebec (1975-1976). Poitras then became an instructor himself, teaching at the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College in Saskatoon (1976-1978), the University of Manitoba (1978) and the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College at the University of Regina (1981-1984, 1989-1990, now First Nations University of Canada). Poitras has also worked as a graphic artist for New Breed magazine (1984-1985).

Poitras's mixed-media sculptures and installations combine a variety of natural and human-made elements. His work explores themes including history, treaties, the effects of colonialism, and life in urban spaces and on the reserve.

Poitras's work has been exhibited in solo and group shows across the country and in the United States and Finland, and has been included in nearly every major contemporary Aboriginal exhibition since 1980. In 1995, Poitras became the first Aboriginal artist to represent Canada at the Venice Biennale. A 2002 exhibition organized by Saskatoon's Mendel Art Gallery, “Qu'Appelle: Tales of Two Valleys,” included many of his recent works.

Poitras's work is part of the collections of the Canadian Museum of Civilization (Hull, Quebec), Mendel Art Gallery (Saskatoon), Saskatchewan Arts Board, MacKenzie Art Gallery (Regina), Thunder Bay Art Gallery, and the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, among others.

In 2002, Poitras was awarded the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts.

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Organized as a partnership project between the Moose Jaw Museum & Art Gallery the Art Gallery of Swift Current, Esplanade Arts & Heritage Centre (Medicine Hat, AB) and Godfrey Dean Art Gallery (Yorkton, SK) and New Dance Horizons Rouge-Gorge.

Funding support for this project is provided by the Government of Canada and the Department of Canadian Heritage.

footnote:   Lee-Ann Martin, “Edward Poitras: Being in His Own Time”, The Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts 2002(Ottawa: Canada Council for the Arts, 2002), p. 29.

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