In what was once the Glyndor dining room, Mary Anne Barkhouse’s reflective installation recalls gatherings that center on remembering and celebrating life. A long harvest-style table is draped with a swath of blue taffeta and laden with porcelain sculptures that suggest the river’s bounty. Overlapping water lily leaves, a favorite food for the area’s thriving beaver population, are inscribed with the names of indigenous groups living in this area 400 years ago. A porcelain beaver and a bronze coyote enjoy the feast. Placed at this table, they connect aboriginal and natural history with the present. The beaver is made of porcelain, a valuable, but fragile material, underscoring both its usefulness and vulnerability. Soon after European contact, beavers and sea otters were eradicated from the area, so the recent return of the beaver to the Bronx River is a testimony to the resurgent health of the waterways. The bronze coyote, made of a more substantial material associated with permanent sculpture and memorials, is chosen for its wild and untamed nature, and is perceived as threatening the “civil and domestic order” in a way that First Nations people once were.
Mary Anne Barkhouse is a member of Nimpkish band, Kwakiutl First Nation. A graduate of the Ontario College of Art & Design, Toronto, ON, she works with a variety of materials and processes to examine environmental concerns and indigenous culture through the use of animal imagery. A member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, her work has been featured in exhibitions throughout Canada including recent solo shows: The Reins of Chaos, Ottawa Art Gallery, Ottawa, ON; and Boreal Baroque, a touring exhibition that opened at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, ON. This is her first show in New York. Barkhouse is the recipient of a Chalmers Arts Fellowship and several Canada Council Grants. Her work can be found in the collections of the Art Bank of the Canada Council for the Arts, Museum of Anthropology at UBC, Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, the Banff Centre and the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs.
Mary Anne Barkhouse would like to gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Fleming College/Haliburton Campus and Michael Belmore.
More information can be found at www.aboriginalcuratorialcollective.org/acc gallery/profile.html |
