Artist
Biography
...
Born in 1941, Hazel Wilson grew up at Old Massett
on Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands). Known
as Jut-ke-Nay in her native Haida language,
she is a member of the Duugwaa St’Langng
7laanaas clan on the Raven side. When Wilson
was 14, she was selected to become a maker of appliquéd
button blankets—ceremonial robes created from
melton cloth and decorated with pieces of abalone,
copper and pearl buttons. A master of her craft,
Wilson went on to make countless robes for friends
and relatives. In the early 1970s she moved with
her children to Vancouver, where she continued to
create robes both for family members and for the
southern market. In 2006, her work was featured in Raven
Travelling, a major 200-year retrospective of
Haida art presented by the Vancouver Art Gallery.
Wilson continues to live and work in Vancouver.
...
For the first three decades of her artistic career,
Wilson concentrated on making blankets with various
family crests, such as frogs and ravens. Although
traditional in conception, Wilson’s interpretation
of this traditional subject matter was nonetheless
distinctive: in addition to buttons, she attached
a range of materials to her robes, including pieces
of brass, shells from the sea and beadwork. In more
recent years, Wilson has extended her art to include
narrative forms that touch on a range of contemporary
concerns. In 2005, she completed a major cycle of
17 blankets chronicling the life and death of the
sacred Golden Spruce Tree (K’iid K’iyaas).
In 2006, she began work on an even larger series
of narrative blankets that record the modern and
pre-modern history of the Haida people. Comprising
50 blankets in all, this series will address such
politically charged themes as large-scale logging
on Haida Gwaii and the devastating impact of small
pox in the post-contact era.
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Selected
Press
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VANCOUVER
SUN
VANCOUVER
SUN
Gallery Exhibitions
Selected Other Exhibitions
...
Raven Travelling: Two Centuries of Haida Art, Vancouver Art
Gallery, Vancouver BC, June 10 - September 17, 2006
Public Collections
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Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest
Coast Art (Vancouver, BC)
Haida Gwaii Museum (Skidegate,
BC)
Selected References
...
Robin Laurence, "Haida
Glee: Transitions in Northwest
Coast Art," Border
Crossings, Issue no.
100
Gallery Information
...
MARION
SCOTT GALLERY
2423 GRANVILLE STREET
VANCOUVER, BC CANADA V6H
3G5
TEL: 604.685.1934
FAX: 604.685.1890
ART@MARIONSCOTTGALLERY.COM |
