Carol Wylie: They Didn't Know We Were Seeds

×

Expand

L: Carol Wylie, "Robbie," 2018, oil on canvas, 36" x 48"

R: Carol Wylie, "Eugene Arcand #781," 2017, oil on canvas, 36" x 48"

Carol Wylie: They Didn't Know We Were Seeds

This exhibition consists of eighteen portraits of Jewish Holocaust and Indigenous residential school survivors. In Jewish tradition, eighteen represents the word 'chai', which means life. Themes including trauma, ongoing recovery, shared pain, and the indomitable human spirit, are central to this work. With numbers of Holocaust survivors dwindling, and the same eventual loss of residential school survivors, these portraits remain and continue to reflect the strength and courage of these individuals.

Carol Wylie has had an active art practice for thirty years, working exclusively with portraiture and figuration. She holds an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, a BFA in studio art and BA in psychology from the University of Saskatchewan. Carol resides in Saskatoon where she teaches drawing and painting and works as an art educator at the Remai Modern.

In 2002, a scandal over racist and anti-Semitic statements made by the former National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, prompted Indigenous leaders to reach out to the Canadian Jewish Congress in an attempt to repair the damage. This led to a flourishing relationship that saw survivors of the Holocaust and the residential school system giving talks in remote communities and across Canada. Robbie Waisman and Eugene Arcand became important figures in a deepening cultural association that continues to this day.