Skeklers and Daub at the Mann Art Gallery

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Laura Hosaluk, “The Settlers,” 2025, willow, daub and rattan, 110" x 50" x 12"(photo by Leah Henderson, courtesy of the Mann Art Gallery)

It is rare that I appreciate the sterility of the white cube. Despite decades of going to exhibitions, gallery environments still make me feel out of place at times. 

However, in the case of Laura Hosaluk’s new exhibition, The Circle and the Dot, the gallery’s blankness allows us to appreciate the work fully. The curves, textures and subtleties of the earthen sculptures sing in the quiet of the space. It is as if we are sitting in a church just as the choir inhales to share their first note. 

The show is on view until Sept. 27, 2025 at the Mann Art Gallery in Prince Albert, Sask.

In this series of works, Hosaluk brings her substantial skill with ceramics and wattle and daub construction to bear. But for the occasional wire rod, the entire exhibition is composed of materials that would return to the earth in a matter of months. Fired and unfired clay, willow branches, wattle and daub (a concoction of hay, manure and mud) are all assembled in a breathtaking variety of forms. 

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Laura Hosaluk, “What Are We Feeding”  2022, 98" x 64" (photo by Leah Henderson, courtesy of the Mann Art Gallery)

In What Are We Feeding, a grid of 84 half spheres is mounted to the wall. Made of pit-fired ceramic, the spheres are arranged from darkest to lightest. No two are the same in shape, size, texture or colour. Each object subtly plays off its neighbors to great individual and cumulative effect. Close inspection reveals a delicate ribbed texture and central nipple to each surface. 

This piece explores the artist’s familial ties. On the one hand, it is an homage to her mother, who passed away two years ago. At the same time, Hosaluk explains that the work was an indirect collaboration with her father, Mike Hosaluk, the renowned woodturner. Laura came upon some of Mike’s “blanks”, or unfinished wood bowls, and treated them as a kind of found object. She pressed the clay into the wooden forms to create the shapes we see in What Are We Feeding, ridges and all. She then fired them in a pit with various combustible materials to achieve the different colourations seen in the installed piece. 

Just as the sensuous delicacy of Hosaluk’s forms reveals itself slowly, the themes underlying the work also disclose themselves without fanfare.

The exhibition is, in fact, a very personal meditation on identity. What Are We Feeding alludes to the artist’s unusual childhood and early exposure to art and craft. Mike Hosaluk was a key figure in organizing the EMMA International Collaborations at Emma Lake, Sask., and he believed in involving his children in the events. 

Laura recalls hanging around well known artisans and artists from a very young age. They would ask her opinion and take it seriously. “I remember realizing, at the age of nine, this is my life’s work. To work with my hands. And that is what I have done,” she says.

Hosaluk’s education began informally in this way, giving and receiving feedback from the teachers who were at hand. Many of these world class artisans later welcomed Hosaluk into their studios for apprenticeships and residencies in a variety of media. She is most drawn to natural materials, however, as she feels that these connect her to the land and her Ukrainian and Scottish ancestors. 

The desire to delve into her roots was sparked by the artist’s decade-long involvement in community art projects in Saskatoon.

One project in particular, where she was invited to participate as an artist in the community at the Whitecap First Nation, was especially important. Here, she reconnected with Walter and Maria Linklater at their 2018 Cultural Camp. During the camp, Walter spoke about the importance of knowing who you are and understanding the paths your family took to bring you to where you are today. This comment resonated with Hosaluk, who had begun to question her role as a person of settler ancestry on the prairies.

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Laura Hosaluk, “Effigy,” 2024, willow, daub and white wash, two pieces: 72" x 20" x 20" and 60" x 17" x 17" (photo by Leah Henderson, courtesy of the Mann Art Gallery)

Taking Linklater’s advice to heart, she visited the Ukrainian Museum of Canada in Saskatoon. This sparked a trajectory of research that continues to this day. Her attraction to the use of earth as a material reconfirms her desire to be connected to the land and to work through questions about how to live in good relationship with the land and Indigenous peoples as a person of settler descent. Her research into the use of wattle and daub by Ukrainian settlers prompted her to use this material in a number of sculptures in the exhibition, including Effigy, a cairn-shaped willow structure covered in daub. 

The combination of willow and earth can also be seen in works such as Lost Histories, a series of more than one hundred forked willow branches whose y-junction is covered in a handful of fired clay. The imprint of the artist’s fist and fingers remain visible, a tangible reminder of the labour that went into each individual object. 

A related work, The Skeklers, consists of two large branches hung inverted from the gallery ceiling. Here again, the y-junctions of the branches are reinforced with handfuls of clay and bear traces of the artist’s hand. Here, Hosaluk makes reference to her Scottish ancestry. A skekler is a pagan folk tradition in the Shetland Islands, where people don straw costumes that embody supernatural beings. Imposing in their height and girth, the sculptures' anthropoid forms silently watch over the gallery as visitors meander through the space.

With so many references to the body throughout the exhibition (hands, breasts, humanoid shapes), it was fitting that Hosaluk invited the KSAMB Dance Company, an improvisational dance company from Saskatoon, Sask., to perform during the opening. Co-directors Miki Mappin and Kyle Syverson performed a site-specific, contact improvisation piece, weaving in and amongst the works and viewers. The dancers forged an emotional connection with the work that made the sculptures seem alive, captivating visitors and passersby alike. ■

Laura Hosaluk, The Circle and the Dot, is at the Mann Art Gallery in Prince Albert, Sask. until Sept. 27, 2025.

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