Western & Sonia Cornwall - Kamloops Art Gallery

WESTERN
Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun
DRIL
Cornelia Wyngaarden
Louise Noguchi
Dana Claxton
Sonia Cornwall:
Roundup
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Online publication of exhibitions organized by the Kamloops Art Gallery, January 18 to March
23, 2013.
Western is curated by Charo Neville, KAG Curator and Sonia Cornwall: Roundup is curated by
Roger Boulet.
The Kamloops Art Gallery is a registered not-for-profit society. We gratefully acknowledge
the financial support of City of Kamloops, Province of British Columbia through the British
Columbia Arts Council and Gaming Information and Services, The Canada Council for the Arts,
Department of Canadian Heritage, foundation grants, corporate donations and sponsorships,
general donations and memberships.
This exhibition was sponsored by Funk Signs, the BC Cattlemen’s Association and The Plaza
Hotel. As a non-profit organization, the Kamloops Art Gallery relies on the contributions of our
supporters. Donations to the gallery can be made by visiting us here –
kag.bc.ca/supportus.htm
©Kamloops Art Gallery, the authors and artists, 2013
Designer: Ross Macaulay
Front cover: Dana Claxton, Baby Boyz Gotta Indian Pony, 2008, C print, 60”x48”
Back cover: DRIL, detail of Move it On Over, 2011 -

WESTERN
Sonia Cornwall:
Roundup

Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun, detail of An Indian Act Shooting the Indian Act, 1997
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WESTERN
January 18 to March 23, 2013
The Kamloops Art Gallery’s 2013 exhibition program focuses its attention on the idea
of “place.” Situated within active ranching country, the first exhibitions of the year look at
how the mythology of the West has developed in this region and opens up a conversation
about our relationship to this place. Western brings together key works by artists who have
addressed the idea of the “west” and the “western” in diverse and complex ways. It offers
us an important opportunity to feature key works from the KAG’s permanent collection with
work from other significant contemporary artists who have addressed this subject.
This group exhibition aims to take stock of the history of settlement in the west and to
reflect upon how this history and its manifestations have shaped the popular imagination.
It includes an absurd and yet strongly metaphorical large-scale installation by the artist
collective DRIL that features the tumbleweed as the main protagonist. It also comprises a
provocative work from the KAG’s permanent collection by Cornelia Wyngaarden that plays
on the sexual stereotype of the “Marlboro Man,” as well as the resulting installation from
Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun’s polemical performance An Indian Act Shooting the Indian Act,
also from the KAG’s collection. Dana Claxton’s Mustang Suite photographs, produced like slick
advertisements, portray the complexities and contemporary realities of the “Indian” family
through hybrid portraits. The exhibition also features Louise Noguchi’s complete early video
series Language of the Rope, in which the artist studies the phenomenon of re-staged and reenacted
cowboy culture.
At times exaggerating these inherited and ingrained mythologies, the work in the exhibition
challenges the “western” trope from multivalent perspectives, offering an un-romanticized
pithy view of relations between cowboys, the North American frontier and First Nations
peoples. In conjunction with the exhibition of paintings by artist and rancher, Sonia Cornwall,
the exhibition re-frames the “Wild West” as an ideological space through a post-colonial lens
of East and West and male and female. This key grouping of Cornwall’s work, curated by
Roger Boulet, offers insight into life on a ranch near Kamloops and demonstrates the artist’s
dedication to depicting the landscape and everyday scenes.
Curated by Charo Neville, KAG Curator
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LAWRENCE PAUL YUXWELUPTUN
An Indian Act Shooting the Indian Act, 1997
Collection of the Kamloops Art Gallery. Purchased with the support of the Canada Council
for the Arts Acquisition Assistance program. The performance and exhibition were originally
produced by grunt gallery, Vancouver and Locus+, Newcastle.
Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun was born in Kamloops, BC in 1957 and grew up in the Vancouver
area. Yuxweluptun is well known for his large-scale acrylic paintings that incorporate Coast
Salish cosmology, Northwest Coast formline design and hybrid imagery. His work addresses
contemporary First Nations political and social issues such as land claims, the treaty process
and environmental, spiritual and economic concerns that have resulted due to colonization.
In 1997, for An Indian Act Shooting The Indian Act, Yuxweluptun traveled to the United Kingdom,
where he literally shot copies of the Indian Act using a .308 rifle and three 12-gauge shotguns
on two different sites—at the National Rifle Association Range in Bisley and on a private estate
in Healey, Northumberland.
With its roots in the British North America Act, first manifested as The Royal Proclamation
of October 7, 1763, the Indian Act was created in 1876, as a statute that governs registered
Indians, their bands and the reserve system. British Columbia, unlike many other parts of
Canada, did not sign treaty agreements with First Nations; rather than compensating them
for their land, First Peoples were consigned to reserves. In his artist statement for this project,
Yuxweluptun writes:
“I have come over to this country to express my feelings towards the Indian Act, which was
written by non-Natives representing the colonial interests of this empire. This performance
is a symbolic act of how much hatred, anguish and anger that I have towards this legislation.
I am symbolically trying to extinguish Canadian colonial supremacy over Aboriginal people
by showing a physical act in spirit that some day this type of legislation will no longer exist
on the face of this sacred mother earth. Aboriginal people are human beings and deserve
the same dignity and equalities as all other Canadian citizens, we deserve the right to selfdetermination,
self-government and self-rule.”
On the walls of this installation, Yuxweluptun asserts his own proclamation dates. In this
direct and yet symbolic gesture, he re-channels the history of violence and discrimination that
has been inflicted on First Nations people onto an inanimate object that embodies the values
of this oppression, thereby enacting an empowered political position.
*source: Archer Pechawis, “New Traditions: Post-Oka Aboriginal Performance Art in
Vancouver,” 2010 (www.indianacts.gruntarchives.org).
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DRIL
Move It On Over, 2011 -
Installation
DRIL is a collective of four artists based in Vancouver. Their collaborative practice is concerned
with the politics of space and has involved projects that look at how histories have affected
our contemporary notions of place.
This is the third incarnation of DRIL’s installation Move It On Over, 2011- , first installed at
Shudder Gallery in Vancouver and then at Open Space in Victoria. The installation and video
work, Goodbye California, feature the tumbleweed as the main protagonist, highlighting the
longstanding iconic and metaphoric position the plant holds within the public imagination.
The video presents a catalogue of these instances within film history. Highly mediated and
constructed, the identity of the tumbleweed has associations within the “western” genre of
20th century cinema — most often proliferated in Hollywood productions as a symbol of the
desolate Wild West. The presence of the tumbleweed typically conveys a sense of impending
conflict (a shoot out or “bad” guys coming through town). Characteristically paired with lone
whistling or harmonica-driven soundtracks, the tumbleweed has come to symbolize a barren
and transient landscape, that of the new and lawless frontier.
DRIL has removed the tumbleweed from its natural environment into a gallery context in
an installation that mimics a theatrically staged film set so the mechanisms of media, filmic
conventions and the museological viewing context are revealed and un-naturalized. The
installation is meant to immerse the viewer in an entirely new environment. As DRIL presents
it, the exaggeratedly anthropomorphized tumbleweed sitting alone in an armchair watching
its own image or grouped together as a massive overgrowth guiding our passage through
the installation, humourously brings its constructed and culturally naturalized identity into
question. The immaculately designed and nostalgic living room setting for viewing Goodbye
California also works to reframe our relationship to these well-established associations with
the tumbleweed and the “western” genre.
DRIL has flipped the symbology of this plant to provide a more critical reading of the West.
The commonly-known tumbleweed is actually the Russian thistle, accidentally introduced to
California and the West Coast by immigrants; it is a hardy and invasive species that chokes
out diversity as it grows. Once it matures and dries up, the plant breaks off its root system and
tumbles far distances dropping its seed as it goes. In this way, the plant can be understood as
a metaphor for diaspora and for histories of colonization that radically changed the landscape
of the West.
*source: Jeremy Borsos, Drifter’s Clip (Victoria: Open Space Arts Society), 2011.
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CORNELIA WYNGAARDEN
As a Wife Has a Cow, 1985
Video installation
45 min loop
Collection of the Kamloops Art Gallery
Cornelia Wyngaarden is a Vancouver-based artist. She has been referred to as a “well known
cultural dissident and an important voice of Canadian feminism.” Wyngaarden pioneered
the development of new media in contemporary art through her own video work and her
early advocacy that supported innovations in the new media community at institutions
such as Video In/Out and The Western Front in Vancouver. Throughout her art practice, she
has produced compelling and politically charged video works and experimental sculptural
installations.
Wyngaarden’s practice draws on lived experience and archival research. It explores cultural
mythologies through traditional documentary forms that are then presented in nontraditional
viewing situations. Her work is rooted in queer and feminist theory and seeks to
disrupt the normalcy of straight culture. Gender role reversal and cross-dressing are common
themes in Wyngaarden’s work, serving as a means for deconstructing stereotypes and cultural
norms.
As a Wife Has a Cow is a portrait of rancher Kelly Moll. The video disrupts the traditional
stereotypes of the “Marlboro Man” in the “western” film genre by featuring a strong female
protagonist, or “Marlboro Woman,” who is clearly comfortable in her own skin and is shown
in her own environment, living and working on the land. In contrast to the slow-motion yet
more aggressive scenes of men at the rodeo, Moll tells her stories and moves within her world
with ease. Many of her stories are about men, and the intercut images show a man’s world.
Through these stories, uninterrupted by the interviewer, the videos reveal Moll’s world view
and character, both shaped by and divergent from the masculine archetype. Wyngaarden
simultaneously uses the mechanisms of and thereby deconstructs “western” pictorial
representation by presenting a matter-of-fact portrait of an alternative, independent and
transgressive female protagonist.
*source: Cornelia Wyngaarden: The Fragility of Origins (Vancouver: Western Front Society),
1994.
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LOUISE NOGUCHI
Language of the Rope series, 1998-2005
DVDs
Rope Tricks
Gun Play
When You Fall off Your Horse
Louise Noguchi lives and works in Toronto, Ontario. Her practice encompasses a variety of
mediums and explores research interests such as subcultures and their histories. The content
investigated in her work often challenges or poses psychological questions to the viewer and
confronts the spectator’s notions of identity, perception and reality.
In the Language of the Rope series, Noguchi delves into her fascination with the mythology
of the North American cowboy and contemporary remnants of Wild West culture through
extensive travels to commercial Wild West theme parks in the United States. In the vain of
the European circus, this form of entertainment was initiated by William Cody (Buffalo Bill) in
1883 as a thrilling and seductive spectacle. In Wild West theme parks such as Six Gun City in
Jefferson, New Jersey and Donley’s Wild West Town in Union, Illinois, the cowboy persona is
glorified on a theatrical stage. In contrast to the gratuitous violence in Hollywood films today,
the focus in these theme parks is on talent and skill and, similar to the “western” film genre,
the re-enactments evoke romantic associations with the cowboy. In Noguchi’s videos, she
emphasizes this seductive quality and reframes these activities in new ways by slowing down
and zooming into the action.
Noguchi’s interest in this culture took her to numerous Wild West theme parks across the
USA over many years and she herself studied the arts of trick roping, knife throwing, bullwhip
cracking and trick riding with Tom Bishop Junior, a professional Wild West performer.
Noguchi is visible in the video Rope Tricks performing her lassoing skills. As a Japanese
woman, Noguchi subverts our expectations of who a cowboy or cowgirl can be. There is a
similar gender crossover in Gunplay, which features a tightly cropped close-up of a tattooed,
black nail-polished performer showing off gun twirling tricks. In When You Fall off Your Horse,
ironically the professional trick rider demonstrates how to fall off his bucking horse, rather
than how well he can stay on.
All these tricks are outside the less glamourous realm of the day-to-day activities of an actual
rancher and instead situate this culture in the milieu of entertainment. The three videos
highlight questions about historicity in relation to the performative by bringing to light the
phenomenon of re-staged “western” culture. In her slow-motion vignettes, Noguchi offers
pause to consider the ways in which this well-established “western” genre has become a
common fixture in the public imagination.
*source: Dazibao press release for document exhibition, 2011.
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DANA CLAXTON
The Mustang Suite
Baby Boyz Gotta Indian Pony, 2008
C print, Collection of the Artist
Baby Girlz Gotta Mustang, 2008
C print, Collection of the Artist
Daddy’s Gotta New Ride, 2008
C print, Private Collection, Vancouver
Momma Has A Pony...(Girl Named History and Sets Her Free), 2008
C print, Collection of the Artist
Family Portrait...(Indians on a Blanket), 2008
C Print , Collection of the Artist
Dana Claxton is an interdisciplinary artist of Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux ancestry currently based
in Vancouver. Her work uses metaphor and symbology to examine frameworks for race and
identity and addresses the destruction and commodification of First Nations culture.
In The Mustang Suite Claxton provides a tongue-in-cheek staging of Indigenous portraits,
presenting hybrid images of traditional and present day identities. The Mustang is a fast
and free spirited horse associated with the history of the Americas and the Wild West. When
reintroduced to America by the Spanish in the 1600s, the horse transformed the lives of the
Plains and Prairies First Nations people. Claxton’s suite of five photographs of this name mark
the significance of this animal in relation to colonization in affecting the trade, mobility and
interaction between First Nations and settlers during the expansion of the West.
Claxton’s slickly produced photographs, reminiscent of high-end advertising, portray the
complexities and contemporary realities of the modern “Indian” family; she mixes value
systems and status symbols by replacing the horse with a pony, vintage bikes and a Ford
Mustang and by merging traditional moccasins, headdresses and face paint with the
contemporary business suit and track pants. The portraits point to generational gaps, shifts in
sexual proclivities and consumerist motivations. In conveying the complexities of the modern
Aboriginal, Claxton provides portraits of strength, endurance and power through the use of
the dominant traditional red colour and the confident gaze, which holds the viewers attention.
*sources: Face The Nation (Edmonton: Art Gallery of Alberta), 2008. Amber Berson, “Dana
Claxton, The Mustang Suite and Hybrid Humour” (Artial: Art & Social Colloquium, June 23,
2010).
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Sonia Cornwall, Sign of Spring, 2002
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Sonia Cornwall: Roundup
January 18 to March 23, 2013
A number of the ranchers in the Cariboo country were educated sons of well-to-do British
families who came to Canada seeking economic opportunities. Such was the case of the Irishborn
Charles G. Cowan (1868-1939) who established himself in Kamloops as a land agent in
the early 1900s after serving in Canada’s North-West Mounted Police. In 1918, Cowan married
Vivien Tully (1893-1990) who had been visiting from Portland. Two years later, they bought
the Onward Ranch. Well educated before marriage and settling into ranching life, the Cowans
continued to value cultural activities and made sure that their daughter Sonia, already
acquainted with painting as a child, received a good education. After the death of her father in
1939 in Victoria where the Cowans often spent the winter, Sonia and her mother returned to
the Onward Ranch, which they continued to operate in order to make ends meet.
Wishing to pursue studies in art after Sonia had grown up, Vivien Cowan attended the Banff
School of Fine Arts in 1945 where she met A.Y. Jackson, one of the founding members of
the Group of Seven. Jackson accepted Cowan’s invitation to visit the ranch and became a
regular visitor. Both mother and daughter benefited from his example and by that of a steady
stream of artist-visitors who came to give classes and workshops. Sonia attended art school
in Calgary for some months in 1946, but soon returned to the ranch and to the life she loved.
She married Hugh Cornwall (1912-2001) of Ashcroft in 1948. Sonia did not always have time to
paint, especially when her daughters were growing up, but after the sale of the Onward ranch
in 1966, the Cornwalls settled on the Jones Lake Ranch and Sonia was able to devote more of
her time to painting, often spending at least a couple of hours a day in her studio.
Because Sonia, like her mother, had been active in the routine work of ranch life, these
everyday activities would become central to Cornwall’s work. Her paintings have a striking
raw, gutsy quality. Her approach to art making is very personal, speaks for itself and
expresses its subject frankly and without pretension. Her work is the product of a life which
combined the routine of a working ranch and an unspoken sophistication gleaned from a
lifetime of reading, looking at works of art and of constant exchange with other artists.
Curated by Roger Boulet
With assistance from Paul Crawford (Director/Curator, Penticton Art Gallery) and Julie Fowler
(Artswells Festival Executive Director/Curator) and special acknowledgement to the Estate of
Sonia Cornwall and the Penticton Art Gallery for lending the selected works.
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1
2
3
4
7 8
5
6
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Untitled (three cows resting in poplar grove), n.d.
Evening Light, 2002
Sign of the Spring, 2002
Curiosity, 2001
Resting in the Heat, 2002
Territorial Fight, 2001
Indoor Rodeo, 1993
Untitled (roundup), 1996
* all works oil on board unless otherwise indicated
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9
10
11
12
15 16
13
14
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
What is the Artist Doing, 1971
Untitled (cattle, pines, landscape), n.d.
Late Sun on the Winder Feed Lot, 1991
oil on masoninte
March of the Cows, 1991
Working Cattle, 1971
Jones Lake Ranch, n.d.
Untitled (grazing cattle), n.d.
Cattle on the Feed Grounds, 1969
oil on masonite
Collection of the Kamloops Art Gallery, Gift of the Kamloops Arts & Craft Club
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1 2 6
3 4 7
5
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Untitled (three horses with tree), 1999
Horses in the Rye Grass, 2002
Untitled (horses at the pasture), 1998
After Dinner Rest, 1998
Untitled (horses in the corral), 1970
Big Stuff, 1973
Our Corrals, 1978
* all works oil on board unless otherwise indicated
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9 12
8 11
10 13
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
Rural Sites, 1986
oil on canvas
Storm 1965
A Corner of the Garden, 1981
Ring Around the Sun, 1970
Early Spring, 1998
The Barn, n.d.
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Sonia Cornwall, Curiosity, 2001
Sonia Cornwall, Untitled (three cows resting in poplar grove), n.d.
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Sonia Cornwall, Evening Light, 2002
Sonia Cornwall, Territorial Fight, 2001
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