Edward Poitras: Revolution in the Rock Garden

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Edward Poitras, "Revolution in the Rock Garden"

Courtesy of the Gallery.

The exhibition Revolution in the Rock Garden presents a focused survey of the compelling political, spiritual, and provocative work of Saskatchewan, Métis artist Edward Poitras, created over the course of his highly respected four-decade artistic career. Poitras envisions this exhibition project as a series of “Treaty Four Art Actions”, which will play out in four acts or parts at four different locations. These “art actions” will involve Poitras, in collaboration with the gallery curators, revisiting and re-contextualizing his past works, as well as including new works, which address the colonial history and impact of Treaty Four.

The work presented spans the course of Poitras’ career from the late 1970s to the present, being derived from public and private collections across Canada, as well as from the artist’s personal collection. Poitras’ work consistently engages visually and conceptually with issues pertaining to the Treaties, colonialism, post-colonialism, cultural identity and place, spirituality, language loss, storytelling, and the rewriting of history, as well as reflecting on processes towards Truth and Reconciliation. 

For four decades in Canada, many Indigenous artists have challenged prevailing notions of a master narrative in the historical development of this country. Edward Poitras has been, and continues to be, in the forefront of this.  As a Métis artist, living on George Gordon First Nation in Saskatchewan, from a Métis (French/Cree) father and a Saulteaux mother, and who belongs to a distinctive third culture, Poitras’ work blends the strategies, iconographies and formal vocabularies of European art with those of Indigenous art, spirituality and culture.