From Edmonton Arts Council: From the echoes of trumpeting hadrosaurs traversing the valley floor, to being buried under a kilometre of ice, this territory has witnessed radical change over the years. It has been home to hunter and hunted alike, be it Albertosaurus and Edmontosaurus, or coyote and hare.
The plants depicted have their own history as important to both body and soul. For those that have gone before, for that which has sustained and for those that have survived, Reign pays respect to the healing and adaptive nature of the land and to the original inhabitants of this territory.
Artist Bio: Mary Anne Barkhouse was born in Vancouver, BC and belongs to the Nimpkish band, Kwakiutl First Nation. She is a descendant of a long line of internationally recognized Northwest Coast artists that includes Ellen Neel, Mungo Martin and Charlie James. She graduated with Honours from the Ontario College of Art in Toronto and has exhibited widely across Canada and the United States.
Working with a variety of materials Barkhouse examines environmental concerns and Indigenous culture through the use of animal imagery. A member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, Barkhouse’s work can be found in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada, and other galleries and collections across Canada including the Art Bank of the Canada Council for the Arts. Public art includes: The Canadian Museum of History (Gatineau, QC), Carleton University (Ottawa, ON), Thunder Bay Art Gallery, McMaster Museum of Art (Hamilton, ON), University of Western Ontario (London, ON), McMichael Canadian Art Collection (Kleinberg, ON), Robert McLaughlin Gallery (Oshawa, ON), Macdonald Stewart Art Centre (Guelph, ON) Haliburton Sculpture Forest Haliburton, ON) and the Millennium Walkway in Peterborough, Ontario.