Jane Ash Poitras, Rick Rivet
Osopikahikiwak

This exhibition presents two artists of Amerindian origin for whom the social function of painting holds sacred and ritualistic meaning. For them, painting is an activity of the mind and spirit which strives to transmit, teach, and manifest a more or less conflictual communion with a symbolic culture, itself increasingly mixed. “Osopikahikiwak” means “painters” in the Cree dialect spoken in Northwest Canada. This term implies that the act of appropriation through which these artists paint on a material support favored by White Western culture, holds no meaning unless confronted with that other act of appropriation which consists of painting a picture with the signs, images and specific practices of Amerindian cultures.

Year of publication : march 1999
21×21 cm , 120 pages
Selling price : 21,5 €. Text in French and English.

Exhibition dates :
from June 4 to October 1st, 1999.

Preface by Robert Desbiens.
Essays by Catherine Bédard: “Osopikahikiwak…and Painting”;
Gerald McMaster: “Jasn Ash Poitras: An Indian in Paris”;
Barry Ace: “Richard Rivet: Contemporary Alchemist”;
and Elisabeth Vedrenne: “Under the Sign of the Shaman”.

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