According to Jackie Traverse, "ever sick" is slang that aboriginal people use when teasing each other, and the expression can be insulting or complimentary. This double meaning is visible in the paintings that make up Traverse's exhibition at Neechi Commons, which pair light and dark humour, the sacred and profane, the grotesque and the beautiful. EVER SICK includes three series of paintings by Traverse, which are currently on display on the second floor of this recently opened aboriginal co-op in Winnipeg's north end that includes a grocery store, restaurant, and arts and crafts store (Neechi Niche). The paintings are installed in the restaurant area next to windows that look out over several Main Street bars and pawnshops. Traverse grew up in a small apartment right across the street, and she spoke with me about how much it meant for her to see her work in this space, and to see a place like Neechi Commons thriving amidst the poverty and violence that exist in the north end.
Jackie Traverse
Childhood Memories is one of the series in the show, and it focuses on characters who made an impression on Traverse as a child. The figures in each painting are isolated in the same brushy, off-white background. One work shows her uncle pulling red snakes out of his nose, which Traverse later learned were bloody cotton balls. In the piece Bats of Lake St. Martin, a small girl in a parka screams as she is lifted away by a bat. A short handwritten note accompanies each of these memory paintings; this one says, "My mom told me if I didn't wear my hat the bats would grab me by my hair and carry me away to go live with them."
Along the Main Street side of the restaurant are the paintings that make up Seven– the seven sacred Anishinabe teachings filtered through Traverse's personal experience and often perverse sense of humour. Love depicts a dream her cousin had in which an eagle tore out her eyeballs. The abstract shapes in the painting represent the signs in front of Main Street hotel bars, two of which (the Yale and the Northern) are visible out the window behind the painting. Traverse's concern for the next generation of young urban aboriginals is expressed in the series Baby Gat, a play on Baby Gap (gat is slang for gun). Babies in bling hold rifles; one of them has been shot through the heart. Traverse wanted these disturbing paintings to de-romanticize the gangster lifestyle, and she made them after seeing facebook photos of friends' babies in gang colours and chains.
Traverse aims to make art that is accessible to everyone. These works are successful in that regard - there is an immediateness to them that speaks to her strong storytelling abilities, and quite a bit of culturally specific humour thrown in (one man chases a beaver late at night, another contemplates telling his girlfriend that she has a bannock-shaped ass). This accessibility does not make them any less loaded with social commentary. While they are often extremely funny (Rodney Dangerfield as an ugly baby getting pissed on by a dog), they also highlight the violence, poverty and racism that are lived realities for many aboriginal people in Winnipeg. Traverse's EVER SICK should be viewed as a site-specific art installation. The paintings communicate plenty on their own, but they take on an even more powerful presence at Neechi Commons, a hub of culture that has quickly become the heart of an already vibrant aboriginal community in Winnipeg's north end.
Neechi Commons: http://www.neechi.ca/
Jackie Traverse: EVER SICK continues until August 1.
Noni Brynjolson is a writer and curator from Winnipeg whose work has been published in journals, exhibition catalogues, blogs, and zines. She is a recent graduate of the Master's program in Art History at Concordia University in Montreal and currently works as the Distribution Coordinator at the Winnipeg Film Group. She is Akimblog's Winnipeg correspondent and can be followed @NoniBrynjolson on Twitter.
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Jackie Traverse at Neechi Commons
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