Day 3-The Curse Continues

Day 3 and another Map drawer! By now I have resigned myself to my curatorial smackdown fate. Map drawer #5 is a drawer with about six John Boyle prints. My first choice in the first SmackDown was Boyle because I didn't like his work. Now I can't get away from him. So there was no other option but to face my fate head on and choose a Boyle. I thought it would also be an interesting opportunity to consider more than one work from the same artist in the show. We'll see.

Boyle is largely a self-taught artist. He is a painter, sculptor, film maker, teacher, lacrosse player and a member of the Nihilist Spasm Band. He was associated early on with Gret Curnoe and Jack Chambers as they initiated an artistic movement in London during the 1960s & 70s associated with one of Canada's first Artist Run Centres and the founding of CARFAC.


The print I chose was Shaganappi Point seen here in a mat and frame that are too small. Shelly will re-mat and re-frame it for me before I hang it. Shaganappi Point is referencing the Indians at the treaty signing at Shaganappi Point in Alberta, which is now located in downtown Calgary. Boyle commented to Gallery Lambton's previous curator, David Taylor that "I had done a series of works about Gabriel Dumont and the Riel Rebellion. In my research I found a pattern of the Black foot Indian's tepee. The fan shape is the pattern for the Blackfoot tepee. You can actually cut it out and fold it in to a tepee"

Shaganappi Point easily carried the Canadian identity and Aboriginal thread along (at least on the surface), as well as the aesthetic cohesiveness that was emerging in that end of the gallery. But now I'm inspired to do more research on Boyle and this particular time period and these specific prints. I will blog that research in as I am able.

It will be intersting to see the final layout of this wall and have the opportunity to really consider these works in relation to one another and within the context of the Gallery Lambton permanent collection.

Lisa