Beau Dick
Pookwis

The gallery is now open by appointment only and will resume its regular hours in September 2010.

Blanket is pleased to present Pookwis, a solo exhibition by Beau Dick, an accomplished Pacific North West Kwakwaka’wakw carver. In his first exhibition with the gallery, Beau explores the stylistic diversity in which the mythical character Pookwis can be resolved.

Beau presents sensuous, and irrational incarnations of Pookwis, the serpent who was turned into a man and who lives under the sea. By doing a deep investigation into the canons of design he has inherited through Kwakwaka’wakw culture, outside the anthropology museum, or the First Nations art shops, he illuminates the meaning in relation to its use.

Unlike “Contemporary Art”, which is supposedly not meant to have an instrumental function (although this is open to debate), Kwakwaka’wakw art provides spiritual instruction, manifests the paranormal, and affirms political power through the Potlatch system. Beau Dick straddles two cultures and his work has both an aesthetic component and a “functional” component, with the emphasis shifting from one to the other in response to the purpose to which it is put.

However, these issues are hardly the driving force behind Beau’s work. Experienced in the supernatural, a seer of ghosts, he leads us to the lush, wooded coastline of the Northwest Coast. Beau’s bold and visceral carvings animate the gallery boasting of a world that can only truly be known through stories and experience.

Beau Dick was part of a two-person show Supernatural at the Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver) in 2004, curated by Roy Arden. The artist’s work will also be presented at The Beauty of Distance, 17th Biennale of Sydney curated by David Elliott. Beau Dick lives and works in Alert Bay, B.C.

For further information please contact the gallery:
info(at)blanketgallery.com
+604-709-6100