Artwork of the Week!

Artwork of the Week!
Week 20:

Jackson Beardy (1944-1984)
Sturgeon Clan
1979
Silkscreen

Cree artist Jackson Beardy was born on the Garden Hill First Nation at Island Lake, Manitoba. Torn away from his family at a young age, Beardy was sent to residential school in Portage la Prairie. Subsequently, he studied art at Tech-Voc High School and at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. In the mid-1960s, Beardy returned to northern Manitoba to collect the stories of his ancestors which he then depicted in his art. His first solo exhibition was held at The University of Winnipeg in 1967, but eventually he participated in group and solo shows at major public galleries across Canada and internationally. Beardy’s mature images, including Sturgeon Clan, express important cosmological and spiritual concepts such as balance in nature, regeneration and growth, and the interdependence of all things. The colours and figures employed in his artworks are often symbolic: here, turquoise blue signifies a link between the spirit world and the actual world and the sturgeon itself represents Beardy’s clan, who were traditionally teachers and healers.