When I opened Gallery Phillip in 1976 and began regularly showing First Nations and Inuit artists, there was still a tendency in the Canadian art world to categorize their work as something cultural and craft-like but not always contemporary in the way it deserved to be recognized. That began to change by the late 1970s, and I remember quite clearly the sense that something was shifting. There was a new confidence in the work of the artists that came up alongside and just after Norval Morrisseau – a refusal to be framed by anyone else’s expectations and it was very exciting to behold.

Morrisseau was at the center of that shift – his strength of line, stunning colour sense and clarity of vision strongly announced itself while Daphne Odjig brought something equally powerful, and entirely her own: a warmth, a humanity, a natural ability to reinvent herself and a political astuteness that made you stop and reconsider what narrative painting was capable of. What continues to amaze me all these years later is how different each of these artists are from one another.  Eddy Cobiness approached his figures with a stylized lyricism, while Blake Debassige evoked Anishinaabe legends with a more cosmic, other-wordly perspective.  Benjamin Chee Chee experimented with textures and fine lines with a beautiful precision.  Clifford Maracle pushed in yet another direction – his portraits are impressionist in their use of brushstroke and are intensely psychological.

What connects these artists is not a shared style, but a shared resolve. They were not interested in fitting into pre-existing ideas of art.  They created their own and they did so with a force and clarity of purpose that continues to feel vital today.

Throughout the month of July, Gallery Gevik is pleased to present The Rise of Indigenous Modernism, an exhibition of works by some of the artists that defined this early and exciting period in Canadian and Indigenous art history, including Norval Morrisseau, Daphne Odjig, Eddy Cobiness, Blake Debassige, Jackson Beardy, Benjamin Chee Chee, Saul Williams, Clifford Maracle, and Alex Janvier.