372 rue Ste-Catherine O, #410, MOntréal
Native art department international | high magick | 16 nov - 23 dec, 2023
I am merely a channel for the spirit to utilize, and it is needed by a spirit starved society
– Norval Morrisseau aka Copper Thunderbird
When I discovered art, I didn’t know it was the shortcut to connect us with our soul. I just knew it was a direct link to the invisible and a way to reach the infinite within us. Going back and forth between the coast of the known and of the unknown, I became a traveller.
Copper Thunderbird found his way to me through artists Maria Hupfield and Jason Lujan of Native Art Department International (NADI), as if they were carriers of his message, on their own journey. A message where the power and beauty of nature, spirituality, and mysticism connect everything together. If paintings from the Woodland Boogie Woogie exhibition were the cosmic map-landscapes which the duo travelled through, in High Magick, it feels as though they are telling us that they found something!
Morisseau was self-taught. His works have been institutionalised through collections and exhibitions. As have mine. I can’t stop wondering if the institutions, which we currently recognize, and the ways that they exercise their power, are the right places to measure an artist’s spiritual legacy and influence?
It’s important for artists to generate and frame our own content so we’re not always looking at institutions to co-opt and define it outside of our awareness
– Maria Hupfield
Living in the context of an “imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy”, to quote bell hooks, I also question this way of creating knowledge. What is the purpose of institutions that are designed to preserve the legacy of the oppressed? What is the nature of that transaction? I can’t stop thinking that these are questions that Hupfield and Lujan are asking themselves in their own ways. To me, those institutions are an articulation of power. The real measure is through people’s capacity to connect unforeseen dots and create a map that traces new territories, that echoes the past, and traces our common future. That’s exactly what Hupfield and Lujan are doing by joining voices and perspectives in order to create a new understanding and approach of the perceptible.
NADI blurs the line of power and this sense of ownership of their destiny reflects the mentality of visionaries that Hupfield and Lujan incarnate. Builders of new pathways to further expand travels, which they invite us all to take part in.
In this new body of work, NADI shepards us towards a new set of discoveries. It is like we are witnessing the apparition of a presence telling us the hidden stories of those mountains, this land. They show a tension between an expansion and a contraction, maybe the reflection of two great minds trying not to be contained on a limited surface. Each of the paintings in the “Hidden Shaman” series represents an eye, a vision of the world that is sensitive to divine intervention, and at the same time very aware of the spiritual values they are creating. The diptych, in particular, makes me think of a rainbow of appearances. It’s as if, diluted within one gaze, the artists were emulating the multifaceted fluidity of one’s soul.
It is not easy to find the gold and create all the mechanisms to find and share it. Can we keep a sense of naivety and euphoria in that journey? Can the beauty of a lost piece be appreciated on its own when found again without the constant perspective of the whole puzzle? NADI is a beautiful demonstration that it’s not only possible, but that in the process, there is room for an entire community to sit at the table and tell their own stories in their own terms.
Manuel Mathieu
This exhibition is part of the satellite programming of Pictura.
Native Art Department International (NADI) is a collaborative long-term project created and administered by Maria Hupfield and Jason Lujan that began in Brooklyn in 2016 and is now based in Toronto. NADI seeks to circumvent easy categorization by comprising a diverse range of undertakings such as unannounced actions, curatorial projects, video screenings, paintings, collective art making, and mixed-use installations. All activities contain an undercurrent of cooperation and non-competition while at the same time functioning as emancipation from essentialism and identity-based artwork. NADI has been featured in exhibitions at Varley Art Museum (Markham), Museum of Contemporary Art (Toronto), and Mercer Union (Toronto). Their works are present in private and museum collections including Markham Public Art and Art Gallery of Guelph, as well as several corporate collections.
Manuel Mathieu is a multidisciplinary artist known for his vibrant and colorful paintings, which skillfully blend abstraction and figuration. His work explores themes of historical violence, erasure, and cultural approaches to physicality, nature, and spiritual heritage. Informed by his upbringing in Haiti, just after the fall of the Duvalier dictatorship, Mathieu’s art delves into the shared links and struggles that unite us across national borders. He holds an MFA Degree from Goldsmiths, University of London, and has exhibited his work in various countries. Mathieu recently received the Best Short Film Award at the 2023 Festival International des Films sur l’Art.