#representational

Meditation, 1899

Koak

The Great Emptiness - acrylic painting - 6"x6" mdf - 2025

“The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into a garment for us.“ - Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451

first posted in facebook october 8, 2023

kent monkman -- "welcoming the newcomers" [from the diptych" "mistikôsiwak (wooden boat people)"] (2019)

"history is a narrative; it's a collection of stories sanctioned by the ruling power, and reinforced through words and images that suit them. that was the whole point of taking on history painting: to authorize these moments that have been swept under the rug for generations" … kent monkman

"i use the vocabulary of painting. that’s my chosen language. it’s something that’s accessible to everybody. the elderly, the young, people of whatever cultural background — they can all read a representational image" … kent monkman

"that 'representational' is significant. after an early career learning about the properties of paint via attempts at abstract art, monkman gradually went in the opposite direction. he had an epiphany in 2011 at the prado in madrid, where a canvas by antonio gisbert awakened him to the lost art of history painting. acutely conscious of how the indigenous story had been distorted and outright ignored by settler artists in north america, he then set about correcting that erasure via a subversive engagement with that fundamentally flawed history" … ian mcgillis