Artist Statement: Artist's Statement

It is a Coast Salish spiRITUAL beLIEf that humans are dependent on animals and forces of nature for spirituality. In the spirit of spindle whorls, two salmon heads as well as a human eye are depicted in this design. The two salmon heads symbolize the spawning stages of a salmon. The salmon is a guardian spirit of a Coast Salish guardian spirit dancer. The vision gifted to the guardian spirit dancer is symbolized by the human eye formed between the two salmon heads.

This design is part of a series of paintings created as a studio component of my Master's degree. Together, this series of paintings are collectively called "cultural conFUSION." My "cultural conFUSION" paintings are an expression of my ambivalence about accepting aesthetic acculturation from northern Northwest Coast art forms. On one hand, my "cultural conFUSION" paintings are intended to reflect the reality that many contemporary Coast Salish artists are appropriating northern and Wakashan art forms of the Northwest Coast. Some contemporary Coast Salish people are living in cultural conFUSION. Some contemporary Coast Salish people are cultural cons convicted by colonialism, living in a political prison of the contructs of "Northwest Coast" and "Indian" culture. Hence the use of red and black, and the "con" in "confusion." On the other hand, these paintings express my hesitant acceptance of influences from northern Northwest Coast art forms on my work as a contemporary Coast Salish artist. Hence the use of red and the peripheral placement of the trigons in the design, and the "fusion" in "confusion."

- lessLIE, 2004

$120.00 CDN

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