Joshim Kakegamic
Joshim Kakegamic (1952-1993) - Artist Biography
Joshim Kakegamic was born at Sandy Lake, Ontario in 1952. He began painting as a teenager in the late sixties under the guidance of his Ojibwa brother-in-law, Norval Morrisseau, and Cree artist, Carl Ray who were holding workshops on local reserves at the time. When they began holding demonstration classes in schools across northeastern and southern Ontario he went along as an assistant.
In 1969, he participated in a group show in North Bay followed by a series of shows in various venues in northwestern Ontario. He continued to paint in North Bay for two years before returning to Sandy lake.
Shortly after, Josh enrolled in a month long workshop at Fanshawe College in London, Ontario. He was introduced to the possibilities provided by screen printing and it was the inspiration he needed in order to fathom making a living as artists. After this moment, he began painting seriously. He returned to southern Ontario to learn screen printing techniques at Open Studio in Toronto and by 1973, with the help of his brothers Goyce and Henry and his father, David, he established a screen printing business known as the Triple K Cooperative. It was modeled after a company Daphne Odjig had set up in 1970 - Indian Prints of Canada Ltd.
He had a major exhibition in 1977 at Toronto's Aggregation Gallery. But all through that decade and the next, he took part in a number of exhibitions throughout Ontario, other sites in Canada, as well as a group show entitled Woodland Indian Art Exhibition at Canada House in London, England and Lahr, Germany. Sadly, Josh Kakegamic drowned in 1993 while attempting a rescue on a lake in Northern Ontario.
Selected Exhibitions:
1975: Indian Art '75, Woodland Cultural Education Centre, Brantford, ON
1975: Aggregation Gallery, Toronto ON
1976: Shayne Gallery, Montreal QC
1976: Contemporary Native Art of Canada - The Woodland Indians, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, for travel to Canada House Art Gallery, London, UK, Aula Luisen Schule, Lahr, West Germany
1977: Contemporary Native Art of Canada - Triple K Cooperative, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto ON
1978: Art of the Woodland Indian, McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg, ON
1985: Norval Morrisseau and the Emergence of the Image Makers, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, ON
Selected Collections:
McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg, ON
National Museum of History, Gatineau, QC
New College, University of Toronto, ON
Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, ON
Simon Fraser University Art Centre, Burnaby, BC
Woodland Cultural Centre, Brantford, ON
Artist Specialization: Kakegamic's work expressed familiar First Nations imagery, such as the thunderbird, in confident, spider-like black formlines that enclosed a web of inner spiritual workings. Secondary earth tones were added later as filler. By the early 70s his formline grew more assertive and more emotionally expressive, often overpowering the image in its black undulations and its spiky determinatives. The scale of Kakegamic's work grew quickly and organically, as though the sheer kinetic energy could simply no longer be constrained. Joshim's later work evolved to balance a synthesis of styles that is at once reminiscent of Morrisseau and distinctively his own. The powerful black formline had been harnessed to create a visual structure that perfectly occupies his entire canvases. And, no longer content to roll out huge demons the length of the given ground, Kakegamic sought to compress more complex imagery into smaller spaces. the richness of the overall design and his distinctive, abbreviated figures in his later works all bespeak a coming of age. -Norval Morrisseau and the Emergence of the Image Makers, Art Gallery of Ontario.
