{"id":25074,"date":"2024-02-21T09:00:02","date_gmt":"2024-02-21T17:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=25074"},"modified":"2024-02-16T11:22:52","modified_gmt":"2024-02-16T19:22:52","slug":"local-art-gallery-owner-to-speak-on-indigenous-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2024\/02\/21\/local-art-gallery-owner-to-speak-on-indigenous-art\/","title":{"rendered":"Local art gallery owner to speak on Indigenous art"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Sunday, February 25, Mark Loria will be giving a lecture on contemporary Indigenous art of Vancouver Island as part of the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria\u2019s Sunday Art Lecture Series. Loria has the experience to talk about the subject: The Mark Loria Gallery, located on Fort Street, opened over 40 years ago. Originally under the care of an Australian woman, Elaine Monds, the initial focus was on Australian Indigenous artwork\u2014but as Monds built more local relationships, the art shifted to reflect that local history.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mark and his wife Mary took over the gallery in 2018, and while they\u2019re not Indigenous, they\u2019ve done a huge amount of work to collaborate with and uplift Coast Salish nations.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
TEMOSEN\u0166ET (Charles Elliott)\u2019s In the Spirit<\/em>, from 1997 (image provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWhen we took over the gallery I was very good friends with\u2026 TEMOSEN\u0166ET, Charles Elliott, who just passed away last year, from the T\u2019sartlip First Nation,\u201d says Loria. \u201c[I had] lots of discussions with him when we took over the gallery, and he and his brother, John Elliott, smudged the gallery and invited us and gave us responsibility to operate the gallery here in 2018… I was reminded a few weeks ago to call myself an invited guest at this point, moving past from uninvited guests.\u201d<\/p>\n

The honour of being invited comes with the weight of relationship and understanding of culture. Because of this, the Mark Loria Gallery operates a little differently than most other commercial galleries.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re more like a collection, so we don\u2019t have contracts with any of the artists. They are open to work with us if they choose to,\u201d says Loria. \u201cWe\u2019ve worked with about 50 artists on an ongoing basis. But they can acquire their own commissions, we can help them get commissions, they can work with other galleries, which they do. And we also purchase art upfront for the most part instead of consigning, so it is more like a local collection of northwest coast and Coast Salish art.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Loria has experience managing high-profile artistic spaces and taking part in the careful research of Indigenous nations\u2019 histories, and he knows the importance of respectful and uplifting relationships with Indigenous artists.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy background is in art, I have a degree in Fine Art from the University of Calgary and I studied printmaking,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd growing up in Calgary, I was fascinated with Indigenous culture. I spent a lot of time as a student studying the Blackfoot collection at the Glenbow Museum. I was very familiar early on with Sixties Scoop residential schools because I had Indigenous friends in Calgary. So as an artist and art worker I\u2019ve been very conscious of the true history of Canada. I\u2019ve always worked to, as much as I could, be involved with Indigenous art and culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Loria says there are unique aspects of Indigenous art in an Indigenous and a non-Indigenous landscape.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn the languages of the northwest coast, there isn\u2019t a word for art… Everything comes from life and ceremony, totems, dance masks, paddles, canoes\u2026 Once you learn a small amount, you realize that this is a visual language,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd if it\u2019s not done the right way, not only is it extremely offensive, but it\u2019s just not important. It\u2019s not valid, it\u2019s not art. So we really have to discuss what makes up the visual language for each territory.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the end of the day, everything comes back to the fulfilment and prosperity of the Indigenous people he works with.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIndigenous people are still repressed. For me, really, the art is secondary,\u201d says Loria. \u201cYou can get out there, you can support Indigenous artists. They\u2019re looking for assistance, not just financially, but getting projects done, getting exhibitions up…\u00a0 <\/span>I want to see Indigenous artists being successful; I want to see their nations being successful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Contemporary Indigenous Art of Vancouver Island
\n<\/i>2 pm Sunday, February 25
\n$30, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria
\naggv.ca<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Sunday, February 25, Mark Loria will be giving a lecture on contemporary Indigenous art of Vancouver Island as part of the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria\u2019s Sunday Art Lecture Series. Loria has the experience to talk about the subject: The Mark Loria Gallery, located on Fort Street, opened over 40 years ago. Originally under […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25075,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,306],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-february-21-2024"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25074"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25076,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25074\/revisions\/25076"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}