(Image: Hang Around the Fort One Day, by Linus Woods)Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump, by Linus Woods
Urban Shaman, 290 McDermot Ave.
To Mar. 5
A unique and powerful myths of the aboriginal people of the central and western prairies is mentioned by American cultural historian Joseph Campbell in his book The Power of Myth, published just after his death in 1988.
Originating in the Blackfoot tribe of present-day Alberta and Montana, it tells the story of a chief's heroic daughter. One year, when the buffalo refused to be herded off the cliffs as they had every year, it seemed as though her people would starve. So the chief's daughter agreed to marry the leader of the buffalo herd, if only he would agree to get his friends and family to jump off the cliff again and provide meat for her people.
Linus Woods, a Dakota-Ojibway artist from the Long Plains First Nation, near Brandon, has chosen this powerful mythological symbol as the title of his show, on at Urban Shaman until this Saturday.
In the story, the bison agreed to the deal, and so the princess left her tribe to roam the plains with him. Her father the chief, though, chased after her, heartbroken, only to be trampled by the buffalo herd. The princess covered her father's body in a blanket, then performed a dance that slowly brought him back to life.
The leader of the buffalo herd is so impressed that he allows the princess to return to her people, and tells her something along the lines of: "From now on, dance this dance every year before the hunt, and us buffalo will always come to your people and jump off the cliff, because your dance will bring us back to life."
So from then on, the story goes, the Blackfoot people danced this ceremonial dance every year before the hunt, and the buffalo allowed themselves to be run off the cliff.
In the past, Woods has said that his work, a blending of ancient native traditions and avant-garde painting, seeks to reproduce the effect of these oral myths. Rather than having a single purpose or conclusion, he feels that his work can be open-ended, and subject to interpretation. (For example, in the myth of the princess and the buffalo, the point of the story wasn't just to remind the people to honour and respect the source of their food, but it also reflected social codes of marriage, family and tribal life, and so on).
Woods's latest show presents a dozen trippy blue-green landscapes and figures, and in style, if not in content, seems to borrow from artists like David Hockney and Picasso as much as any specific "aboriginal" style.
The trickster figure of the rabbit, though, a recurring character in the mythology of plains people, shows up in most of Woods's paintings here. Like the trees, humans, and and even the landscape around him, the rabbit almost always leans to the east, as if pushed by some invisible force.
It's a skillful blend of medium and message, in which the theme and colour work together to create the moody shamanistic effect the artist has in mind.
Those who've seen Woods's work before, in the handful of major shows he's been in, will recognize ongoing changes and development in his style.
The exhibit shows that, just shy of 40, Woods is hitting his stride as an artist, and perhaps even beginning to emerge as a truly distinctive voice. So while this exhibit shows his impressive development over the last few years, the best may be yet to come.
