JANE ASH POITRAS, May 26 - June 7, 2007, Bearclaw Gallery, Edmonton

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"Bolivian Shaman Protest"

Jane Ash Poitras, "Bolivian Shaman Protest," mixed media on canvas, 20" x 30" .

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"Ethnobotanist with Neophytes"

Jane Ash Poitras, "Ethnobotanist with Neophytes," mixed media on canvas, 20" x 16".

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"Bolivian Shaman Protest"

Jane Ash Poitras, "Bolivian Shaman Protest," mixed media on canvas, 20" x 30" .

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JANE ASH POITRAS

Bearclaw Gallery, Edmonton

May 26 - June 7, 2007

By Gilbert A. Bouchard

While much has been said and written about Edmonton-based painter Jane Ash Poitras’ reputation as a creator of hard-hitting, politically and intellectually engaged art, not as much attention has been focused on an equally significant artistic and spiritual journey she’s undertaken with great vigor in the past half-decade.

Poitras’ most recent show, an exhibition of multimedia, collage-based work opening at the Bearclaw Gallery on May 26th, is about myriad forms of international shamanism, following on the heels of several other spiritually engaged shows produced by the internationally-acclaimed artist.

Her show Consecrated Medicine is still traveling across Canada (a show playing on issues of indigenous language and the spiritual) and her last two Bearclaw shows were Sacred Portraits and Profiles (featuring images of spiritual significance including portraits of Chief Dan George and Albert Einstein, and historic photos by Edward S. Curtis) and Cultural Hierophany (or Cultural Sacredness, an exhibition of images riffing on various First Nations people and ceremonies).

Never afraid to deconstruct her own feelings, artistic process or deep motivations in her art, Poitras has described these recent spiritually-based shows as bodies of work meant to be as aesthetically, intellectually and spiritually correct as possible. She also intends them to be “empowered to the sacred,” aiming to draw viewers into the spiritual reality depicted, as well as making them question their own beliefs.

Typical of her work over the past few years, this show boasts a rich array of images, lush colours and various drawn designs created using gel-transferred photographs and paint-based work created with high-quality, highly-layered oil pigments on traditionally stretched canvases.

Poitras says the work was inspired by the various First Nations elders she’s met in her travels, and the realization that she was using more and more images of them in her work.

“What I’m doing with this show is a series of paintings that deal with some aspect of shamanism,” says Poitras. “I’m asking things like, what is it? Is it around today? And exploring the idea that despite all the documentation found about shamanism, the only ones who really know what shamanism is are the ones who are immersed in its study.”

Not wanting to limit herself to First Nations shamanism, Poitras is continuing an exploration of Tibetan spirituality, as well as an ongoing deconstruction of ethno-botany. Work in some of her past shows has detailed her study of sacred and medicinal plants like sage and mushrooms — no huge surprise, given that Poitras’ first post-secondary degree was a B.Sc. in microbiology. She subsequently completed a B.F.A. in printmaking from the University of Alberta and an M.F.A. in printmaking from Columbia University in New York.

Poitras unifies all of her themes in the show’s featured image of the late pioneer ethno-botanist Richard Schultz, a painting that is one of Poitras’ favourite works in the show. “Schultz studied hundreds of plants used in shamanistic ceremonies based on his extensive travels and research, a journey that started with his joining peyote ceremonies and taking the medicine himself,” the artist says.

“I did a small, simple piece of him sitting in a hut with South American kids waiting for the rain to stop. You see the compassion and the closeness the kids had with him, this magic moment captured of the white shaman advocate with these neophyte shamans.”

Poitras, a popular visiting Native Studies instructor at the University of Alberta, is also embracing an open and inviting didactic element in this show, fighting cultural fear and ignorance with knowledge.

“This all started with me going down south (to the American Southwest) for a trip that was supposed to be ten days long, but stretched out for two years and showed me a mind-blowing spiritual world,” she says.

Represented by: Bearclaw Gallery, Edmonton; Mountain Galleries, Jasper, Banff, Whistler; Spirit Wrestler Gallery, Vancouver; Galerie Vincent, Ottawa; Fehely Gallery, Toronto.