Artist Profile

To acknowledge both Indigenous Veterans Day (November 8) and Remembrance Day (November 11), the AFA's Work of the Week is Untitled (Soldier Sask Airport Mural Drawing) by James Nicoll.

About the artwork
 

This drawing is part of a series of sketches that were used to develop a mural at a Saskatchewan airport. There is another James Nicoll drawing of a Paratrooper in the AFA Art Collection, and the artwork includes the following text: “Drawing Series for Mural – Royal Canadian Air ABM, Saskatchewan airport.”

AFA staff have been unable to identify for which airport in Saskatchewan these drawings were created. (Any tips can be sent to afacontact@gov.ab.ca.)

About the artist

James (Jim) Nicoll was born in Fort Macleod, Alberta in 1892, and he primarily grew up in Nelson and Fernie, British Columbia. He served during World War I.

Jim started painting in 1930, while he was working as an engineer for the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). Nicoll met his wife, well known Calgary artist Marion Mackay [Nicoll], at the Calgary Sketch Club in 1931. They married in 1940 and, in 1945, they settled in Bowness, a village just west of Calgary.

Jim was a realist painter, who worked primarily with oils. He was a self-taught artist who believed in representing the correct anatomy of objects, architecture, and people. Like his wife, Nicoll was important to the creation of the art scene in Alberta and Calgary. Read more about the artist. 

The AFA currently holds 389 different artworks by Jim Nicoll, which can be viewed on the AFA Virtual Museum. 

This week’s Work of the Week is Sunset on Boot Hill by Delia Cross Child.

Cross Child’s acrylics, such as Sunset on Boot Hill, are stunning evocations of colour that might be mistaken as psychedelic by anyone who had never witnessed the rolling prairies of southern Alberta. Her landscape scintillates with reds, ambers, and blues that rise like smoke into a sky aflame.
 

About the Artist: Delia Cross Child

Delia Cross Child is a Blood and Peigan artist and teacher who fuses historical and contemporary art traditions of Turtle Island and Europe to inspire her communities and educate the public about First Nations issues.

Born in Pincher Creek and raised in an one-child family on the Peigan Reserve at Brocket, Cross Child was fascinated by the landscape and its changing seasons, whose mountain-view hills and Old Man River valley she explored with her parents and siblings. The experiences became foundational to her later paintings; she describes “a performance… of ever-changing colour, sight, and sound” that was “only a part of the territory that… the Blackfoot Confederacy… had occupied for a long time. [It was] a place of solace during the times when my world appeared to be chaotic and confusing,” a world whose legacy included the mass-trauma of forced assimilation, residential schools, and “hunger, sadness, and abuse.”

Cross Child later attended the University of Lethbridge where she earned her B.A. in Art and Native American Studies (1996) and her B.Ed. in Art (2002). To motivate her students at Kainai High School on the Blood Reserve near Standoff, Alberta, she integrated traditional visual literacy into her teaching

Cross Child’s work has been exhibited at the Glenbow Museum, Walter Phillips Gallery, and Southern Alberta Art Gallery, and lives in the public collections of the University of Lethbridge, the Blood Tribe Administration, and the Glenbow Museum. Cross Child has received several academic and art awards, including membership in the University of Lethbridge’s Alumni Honour Society (2009), the Blackfoot Fine Arts Award (2008), and the Gerald Tailfeathers Art Scholarship (1996).

This week’s Work of the Week is Mind Over Matter by renowned Indigenous artist Alex Janvier.

This past Wednesday, September 30, was Orange Shirt Day – a day to honour residential school survivors and victims. In Alberta, there are about 12,000 residential school survivors and their families, including Alex Janvier.

About the Artist: Alex Janvier

Alex Janvier was born on the Le Goff Reserve, Cold Lake First Nations, Alberta, in 1935. He was raised in the Chipewyan tradition until he attended the Blue Quill Residential Indian School at the age of eight.

Janvier graduated with Honours from the Alberta College of Art in 1960 and since then has built an international reputation as a painter, muralist and printmaker. He has influenced a younger generation of native artists through his paintings and advocacy work with arts organizations and land claim committees.
 

His imagery is a combination of traditional native decorative motifs such as medicine wheels, floral designs and symbolic colour combinations. In the late 1980's and early 1990's, his work became more representational and concerned with specific social and political issues.

Janvier has been the recipient of many accolades throughout his career. Since 2007, he has received honourary doctorates from both the University of Calgary and the University of Alberta, was appointed to the Order of Canada, received a Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts and was the first ever recipient of the Marion Nicoll Visual Arts Award from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.

Alex Janvier continues to live and work in Cold Lake.

This week’s Work of the Week is Viking II by Douglas Motter.

When someone says the word ‘Viking’ do you think of a burly, blonde man wearing a horned helmet who plunders villages? If so, you may want to think again!  A new study suggests that Vikings didn’t exactly fit these modern stereotypes. Read more about it here. 
 

About the Artist: Douglas Motter (1913-1993)

Douglas Motter was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1913. He moved to Calgary, Alberta with his family in 1919. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Interior Design from the University of Missouri in 1935.

Motter was an educator, a watercolour painter, a printmaker, and a weaver. He was introduced to hand weaving in 1945, when he bought a loom for his wife. What started out as a hobby ended up turning into a career, as he was weaving professionally by the 1960s. Motter opened his own weaving studio called Doug Motter & Associates in 1961. His company specialized in creating decorative pieces, and one-of-a-kind fabrics. His studio also provided novice weavers with a place to test out their weaving skills.

In 1958, Motter was selected to exhibit at the Brussels World Fair. He was also chosen to exhibit at the 1967 International and Universal Exposition in Montreal, Quebec (or Expo 67, as it commonly referred to).

Motter started teaching classes part-time at the Alberta College of Art in 1962, and by 1968 he was a full-time instructor at the College specializing in weaving, drawing, and design. He made a significant contribution to establishing the visual arts scene in Calgary, as he was one of the founders of the Allied Arts Centre. Motter also served as the President of the Alberta Society of Artists for two terms, and held the position of Provincial Director for Alberta at the Canadian Crafts Council.

His watercolour paintings reside in private and public collections in North America.

This week’s Work of the Week is October Snow, Foothills Morning by David More.

Well, it’s mid-October and that means it’s time for snow! Many parts of Alberta will be getting their first snowfall of the year today.

About the Artist: David More

David More is a painter, illustrator, author, and muralist.
 

Born in Scotland, he moved with his family to Canada in 1948, eventually settling in Red Deer, Alberta. Growing up in a community surrounded by forests and parks had a profound effect on shaping his art practice, especially what he calls his direct landscape paintings. He makes beauty out of the ordinary, whether depicting wild or manicured spaces, and explores in paint the range of moods in places often known only to locals.

More uses his art to explore subtle changes in the landscape, including the ebb and flow of the Medicine River through the seasons, the various cloud formations over the sky in the prairies, and the slow but destructive effects of acid rain in New Brunswick. More began his Garden Ceremony series in 1975, and he has returned to this series continually over the years. Inspired by his travels throughout Canada and to countries including Brazil, France, England, Trinidad and India, these large-scale garden paintings explore the juxtapositions between man-made and organic forms.

He graduated from the Alberta College of Art and Design (now the Alberta University of the Arts) in 1972. In his early career, he worked as an art history researcher, a medical graphics artist, and taught at the Alberta College of Art and Design for three years. He came back to Red Deer and was a part-time instructor in the faculty of visual arts at Red Deer College for over 30 years, until his retirement in 2014.

In 2019, More donated about 200 sketches, drawings, and paintings to the Red Deer Museum & Art Gallery, as a way to give back to the community where he has spent most of his life painting the fields, streams, and skies.

This week’s Work of the Week is Revenant Portrait No. 5 Locked Doors by Calgary artist Karrie Arthurs.

About the Artist: Karrie Arthurs

Karrie Arthurs is a Calgary-based artist who works with paper and ink. A long-time tattoo artist, Karrie says her two artistic practices influence one another—almost melding together.
 

For several years, she has sourced and collected a large amount of “antique” paper, envelopes, documents, portraits etc., some dating 150 years old or more. This is the material she incorporates into her art - drawing on it with ink, charcoal and chalk primarily.

You can learn more about Karrie Arthurs and her artistic practice in her Alberta Artist Profile on our website.

This week’s Work of the Week is Perception 3 by Robert Dmytruk.
 

About the Artist: Robert Dmytruk

After earning his B.Ed. in Secondary Art Instruction (1980) at the University of Alberta, Robert Dmytruk undertook three decades of teaching Alberta teens the values and techniques of painting, drawing, and mixed media. Using those same modes for his own artistic practice, Dmytruk began painting plein air landscapes, but then began obliquely depicting environmental themes in his exploration of rural and urban landscapes. At the same time, he was developing his own style with influences arising from artists such as Cy Twombly, Paul Klee, and Joan Miro. In Robert Dmytruk – Transitions (Rich Fog Micro Publishing, 2013), Julie Oakes remarks that Dmytruk “speaks volumes with his lines, textures, patches of colour and undulating toned-downed atmospheres. His paintings are in fact playful, lilting, and without a didactic hidden agenda, accepting the great opposites of our modern dilemma.”

Dmytruk has mounted numerous solo exhibitions, including at Edmonton’s The Works Festival, St. Albert’s Profiles Gallery, and Stony Plain’s Offenhauser Art Museum. The Alberta Foundation for the Arts Collection, the Strathcona Permanent Art Collection, and private collectors own selections of his work.

In addition to receiving the Prime Minister’s Award for Teaching Excellence in the Fine Arts, Dmytruk also won the Award for Teaching Visual Arts from the Emily Carr School of Art and Design—both in 2006.

After teaching and serving as an administrator in art schools, universities, and conferences in Canada and the U.S., Dmytruck retired to Summerland, British Columbia to create art full-time in his private studio.

This summer, we are excited that three short films from our art collection will be showcased as part of our AFA travelling exhibitiong (TREX) program in Southeast Alberta - Medicine Hat.

Plan your visit:
 

View it for free in-person: TREX Southeast art gallery: 2, 516 3rd Street SE, Medicine Hat, Alberta

But wait, it gets better ... the films will be projected on the outside of the building for the month of August where it's visible from the sidewalk. Note the gallery will be closed for internal operations the month of August so this provides an alternative for the public to access art on the exterior of the building.

Media Arts:

The Little Deputy

Trevor Anderson, The Little Deputy, 2015, video, 0:8:51 minutes, Collection of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts

• Trevor tries to have a photo taken with his father.
• World Premiere: Sundance Film Festival
• Trevor Anderson is a writer, director, actor and former video store clerk whose short films were presented at a variety of international festivals. 

Dark Horse

Yvonne Mullock, Dark Horse, 2016, video, 16:28 minutes, Collection of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts

• Dark Horse uses symbols synonymous with cowboy culture; the Stetson hat and horse, as tropes to explore Calgary’s long and entwined history of ranching and the city’s historic annual Stampede event. Using print, video and sculpture Dark Horse explores an innovative horse-centric printmaking method and invites viewers to delve into cowboy identity and Western mythologies that hover over the history and collective memory of folklore traditions in Calgary.
• Yvonne Mullock received an AFA International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) Residency in New York Funding in 2017. Her artwork was selected in numerous exhibitions in Alberta and world-wide. 

Wake Up!

​Jessie Ray Short, Wake Up!, 2015, experimental film, 5:57 minutes, Collection of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts

• Wake Up! highlights the legacy of eighteenth-century Métis political leader Louis Riel and raises questions about colonialism.
• Jessie Ray Short is a filmmaker, multidisciplinary artist and independent curator. Her work touches on Métis history and visual culture.

Click the arrow icons ( < or > ) above to scroll through images.

Image descriptions:

• image one: a black and white image of an older man is sitting and is wearing a cowboy hat, and vested suit. Beside him is a young boy wearing a cowboy hat, vest, jeans and his side pocket holds a gun in a gun belt.
  
   
• image two: A brown hair person is hidden behind a brown horse. A blonde woman wearing a white artist apron and long sleeved black shirt, where she is holding a mono-print of a cowboy hat in front of the horse
  
   
• image three: A young man with curly brown medium length hair and moustache. He is wearing a white shirt and brown vested suit.

This week’s Work of the Week is Blue Picture Stand by Sidney Kelsie.
 

About the Artist: Sidney Kelsie (1928 - 2000)

A Black man of Caribbean heritage, Sidney Kelsie was born in Windsor, Nova Scotia in 1928.

He joined the Canadian Navy at the age of 16, before going to work at logging camps. After suffering serious injury to his legs in a logging accident, he went to work as a house painter. He had to give that up in 1979 due to his old injuries, and at the age of 53 and retired, he started fashioning cut-out wood shapes which he painted in colourful hues and hung in the yard of his Edmonton home. Passersby began taking an interest in the hanging artworks and would occasionally ask to buy individual pieces. Kelsie would often comply and in this way could supplement the meagre income that he shared with his wife Louise. Gradually, his art began to attract attention from serious collectors as well as art dealers.

Completely self-taught, Kelsie would accurately be described as a “folk artist.” His art was a product of his own imagination, although critics have pointed out connections to other “yard art” creators. Mostly African-American, it is speculated these individuals may have been carrying on a traditional West African practice of hanging charms in trees around the home in order to protect the home-owner and provide healing and spiritual affirmation. Kelsie didn't have much to say about such theories, however, and, in fact, was reluctant to even call himself an artist. Nonetheless, what he made was appreciated by long-time art collectors and by ordinary people with no knowledge of art.

Kelsie's art did receive its share of official art world recognition, including in 1996, when some of his pieces were included in a major show of folk art at the McMichael Collection of Canadian Art in Kleinburg, Ontario, curated by Calgary art critic Nancy Tousley.

Exhibition:

Check out the "Sidney Kelsie: Right in your own backyard" exhibition at AGA in-person to see the artwork that we have loaned out until August 1, 2022. Free admission to AGA in Edmonton is the last Thursday (4-7pm) of every month. Get your free ticket to a community tour of Kelsie's exhibition with David Staples July 28, 2022 event.

Or listen to the audio documentary to learn more about the artist, what art meant to Kelsie, and how his legacy lives on.

Explore the AFA's Virtual Museum to see other works of Alberta artists.

This year, National Indigenous Peoples Day also coincides with Summer Solstice on June 21. It is a great way to celebrate the unique culture and achievements of the First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples of our country.
 

During National Indigenous Peoples Day and June's National Indigenous History Month, explore:

• amazing artwork by Indigenous artists in the AFA's collection
• upcoming events throughout the province
• resources and events across Canada

About the artwork:

Poitras enjoys working in a variety of media including painting and mixed media collages that incorporate historical and contemporary symbols, newspaper clippings, and painted elements. In her work, 'Legacy of a Liberated Culture', she uses mixed media to create a colorful collage to highlight her diverse culture.

View the artwork in Augmented Reality. And click on the pink 'AFA virtual museum' below to discover other artworks by Poitras from 1984 to 2019.

About the Artist:

Jane Ash Poitras was born in the northern Alberta Cree community of Fort Chipewyan. Even though it was recommended for her to pick another career, as it was perceived it would be impossible to make a living as an artist, her resiliency helped her achieve a successful career. 

She has garnered her many accolades and achievements through her career, including being a recipient of:

• the Alberta Centennial Medal (2005)
• Order of Canada (2007)
• Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Distinguished Artist Award (2011).

Image description

Multi-color images of an Indigenous person wearing a black and red feathered head dress, brown dog-like animal, yellow and red bird-like animal, black and red and turquoise abstract faces, and various black and white historic symbols. Four tipis with various colors including brown, yellow, whilte, red, green, blue and pink are at the bottom of the painting.