Hank Bull : Message from the Forest

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c. Hank Bull

Nine Mile Point (up skupa), 2025, oil on linen; 25" x 32"

This exhibition was conceived in the wilderness, on the swiya territory of the shíshálh Nation; not far away, just northwest of Vancouver. Hank Bull has spent many years in this region, watching and listening to the land.

There are three new bodies of work that make up the exhibition: a found alphabet photographic series called Natural Language, a suite of landscape paintings called Seasons and a series of sculptures and photographs based on the idea of the book, called The Library. Each of the three components is in conversation with the other two and all represent in some way the voice of the forest.

Natural Language

Twenty-six letters of the alphabet found inscribed in the branches of the trees of the forest. Cedar, maple, alder and yew each have their say. The relation between letters and trees is very old, especially in Celtic and Nordic cultures.

The Library

Books are made from trees. Some of the books in this series are split from red cedar, others are hand milled with a chainsaw. They are made to look like books without losing their identity as wood. The book touches all aspects of human history, and in many respects causes that history to be. Sacred books, books of the law, accounting books, even AI is an extension of the book. And, after all those books and all those many years, what have we learned?

The Seasons

The artist has been making landscape paintings from a young age. This new series, completed in 2025, considers the changing seasons. The salmon run in the autumn, the winters are dark and sometimes stormy, the spring is good for mushrooms, and the light lingers over long summer afternoons. Each of these paintings has a story to tell.

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Hank Bull was born at Moh’kins’tsis (Calgary) in 1949. He attended the New School of Art in Toronto and pursued independent studies in Europe. Moving to Vancouver in 1973, he joined the Western Front, an artists' collective, where he explored a wide range of media, including radio, video, performance, music, photography, shadow theatre, and telecommunications. In 1999 he was a co-founder of the Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art. A career survey of his work, CONNEXION, travelled to five museums across Canada in 2015. He continues to be engaged as an advocate for the visual arts.