Xwalacktun
Recipient of Griffin Art Projects Inaugural Indigenous Studio Award
Griffin Art Projects is honoured to announce the distinguished artist Xwalacktun as the inaugural Indigenous Studio Award recipient. Xwalacktun is a renowned Master Carver of Coast Salish ancestry, from the Squamish and Kwakiutl clans. His remarkable work and career extend over forty years and across numerous forms, including public art, sculpture, metalwork, jewelry, glass work, drawing and printmaking. He is the recipient of the Order of British Columbia, the FANS Honours Award from the North Vancouver Arts Council which acknowledged his commitments both locally and worldwide and the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal. His public art awards are many, including more than thirty poles which have been presented throughout Scotland as a symbol of friendship between Canada and Europe, the 20 foot tall Squamish Pedestrian overpass spanning The Sea to Sky Highway, a red cedar memorial pole for Transport Canada, the major entry doors for the Gordon Smith Gallery Artists for Kids Building, a multimillion dollar home in Whistler featuring Xwalacktun’s four carved house posts, which received two Gold Georgie Awards in 2002, and a public work entitled, Sna7m Smanit (Spirit of the Mountain) in West Vancouver’s Ambleside Park completed in 2006.
His design work is also extensive: the 2012 Senior’s Olympics torch, medals and banners for the Nordic World Cup Winter Games in 2008 and 2009, elaborate snow boards for the First Nations Snowboard team, Rick Hansen’s 25th Anniversary print, Vancouver 2010 Olympic wear, carved double doors for B.C. Hydro’s Burnaby and Vancouver locations, cedar double doors for Harrison Hot Springs Resort’s Healing Springs Spa as well as collaborating with three artists in Beijing on work for the Canada Pavilion. He also created designs for the 2010 Olympic Bid box and created the initial 2010 winter sports icons.
Recent significant works can be seen at the West Vancouver Community Centre in a 30-foot conference room panel, the welcome figure at Whistler’s Peak to Peak building, University of Victoria (double doors), the Chancellor’s mace for Capilano University and Emily Carr University, where he also produced two outdoor house posts, and a welcome carving at West Vancouver Secondary School.
Xwalacktun was initially self-taught with influences from his father and brother, and through careful observation of Coast Salish forms under the tutelage of Larry Joseph, became a skilled artist working to share knowledge on its unique symbolism and expression. It was at the encouragement of his father, the hereditary chief, Pekultn, from North Vancouver Seymour River, that he decided to become an artist, and enrolled at Capilano College and the then Vancouver School of Art, which later became Emily Carr University, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Art. After completing his degree, he immediately began teaching and sharing his knowledge, a lifelong pursuit which melds artistic excellence and the artist’s natural warmth and generosity of spirit, with his desire to educate others on the culture and people of the Squamish and Kwakiutl Nations. Xwalacktun says, “We are connected to the earth, the land, the water, the trees. We are all one.”
At Griffin, Xwalacktun will open up the process of his current project with St. Andrew’s Wesley United Church in Vancouver, a cedar house post which will form part of the church’s Reconciliation Wall, through sharing his process in an artist’s talk, and through open public workshops and a carving demonstration onsite at Granville Island in August which will include story, song, reflections and feasting, culminating in the presentation of the completed work at St. Andrews on September 30, Orange Shirt Day, a day which honours the children who were sent away to residential schools.
Griffin will work with Xwalacktun to publicize and share these events, as well as during an Open Studio in September where he will present a selection of works in process. Xwalacktun’s residency is presented as part of the Worldings residency series, which presents Canadian and South African artists in both onsite and virtual residencies, to explore resilience, resistance and ways of articulating what reconciliation may be, what forms it might take and the unexpected ways in which this complex process and journey unfolds, presented on the occasion of the exhibition William Kentridge: The Colander (on until Sepember 4, 2021). Xwalacktun’s studio residency will take place from August 1 to September 30, 2021. See www.griffinartprojects.ca for public programming schedule, dates and details associated with the Indigenous Studio Award residency.
