Main Gallery

#26 Winter Buffalo  Photo credit:  Jude Norris

The Definition of Bear  Photo credit:  Amin Rehman

Mooswa, Muskwa, PuskwaMoostoos - Digital Creations
with Immemorial Relations
An exhibition of works by Jude Norris
March 6 – April 24th, 2010
Opening:  March 12th  7 to 11 pm

Jude Norris is a (Metis) Plains Cree multi-media artist from Alberta, Canada, currently based in Toronto and NY. The layers of material and meaning in her work mirror the particular dichotomy of living as an Indigenous person in a contemporary colonial environment, but they are also universally accessible and relevant in both aesthetic and metaphor.  She uses a variety of media in creating idiosyncratic juxtapositions of the traditional with the technical, the organic with the manufactured. At times, Norris combines objects that are symbolically, directly, and/or stereotypically connected with Native American culture with elements of Euro-centric creative practice.  She also uses Plains Cree and English language as reflections of the disparate paradigms of aural and literary based cultures. All of these elements become devices that investigate both the positive and negative situations and potentials of cross-cultural communication and evolution. Jude Norris 'collaborates' with objects and images gathered from the land and animals, repositioning them in 'art world' contexts that emphasize their physical beauty, but also poke quiet but serious 'fun' at their misplacement.  Basic qualities of her work include circularity, multiplicity of meaning, and focus on relationship - with land, technology, other beings, and self. However challenging the realities Norris reflects as an artist, she notes the importance of instinct, continuation, commitment, (subtle) humour and celebration that remain fundamental elements of her practice. She strives to make contemporary objects that become more  than the sum of their parts, and whose physical presence can create a deep impact, speaking in multilayered tongues and touching a place beyond conscious through their own 'Good Medicine'.

Urban Moorings Project Catalogue Launch
Friday, December 11, 2009 at Hamilton Artists Inc.
161 James St. North 7 p.m. to 11 p.m.,
during the James St North Art Crawl

Download Urban Moorings Catalogue

Essays by Nora Hutchinson (Curator), Irene Loughlin, and John Terpstra on the work of artists: Susan Detwiler, Tor Lukasik-Foss, Noel Harding and David Acheson, and Steve Mazza with a Foreword by Anna Bradford (Culture Division, City of Hamilton) and Tys Theysmeyer (Head of Conservation, Royal Botanical Gardens). Project management and administration by Donna Lee MacDonald. Catalogue design by Mark Byk.

Pick up your copy, meet the curator and the artists, and view video of the installation by Irene Loughlin and project photo documentation by Cees van Gemerden, as well as drawings by the artists.

The Urban Moorings Project consisted of four floating sculptures and gardens on the wetlands of Cootes Paradise. The project reflected on past communities that lived on and around Cootes  Paradise. These included Shacktown, the houseboat community that  was displaced before the 1940's. The sculptures were the artists' responses to this history.   As the sculptures interpreted our past, the gardens considered our future and reflected  on current restoration projects involving native plants and wildlife.

The Urban Moorings Project is planned to occur bi-annually at Cootes Paradise, RBG. The Urban Moorings Project was co-presented by Hamilton Artists Inc., the City of Hamilton and the Royal Botanical Gardens, and supported by The Canada Council for the Arts, The Ontario Arts Council, The City of Hamilton, Turkstra Lumber, The Ontario Trillium Foundation, and The Hamilton Community Foundation.

The catalogue is realized through a project grant from the Canada Council for the Arts.

For more information please contact: irene@hamiltonartistsinc.on.ca

Window Spaces by Artists

Erin Warner

“Boys Club” is a humourous commentary on gender roles and sexuality by Erin Warner. Warner is originally from the Eastcoast of Canada, and has been a resident artist of Hamilton for the past eight years. This is her first window installation work, evolving from her previous studio work based on linocuts on paper, which are transposed onto scrap fabric and handsewn into the current installation. Her past work includes painting on canvas and silkscreening. Her work has further developed at the Print Studio, where she volunteers as an assistant in educational workshops. She hosts an erotica night with a group of friends, which is an open-mike event consisting of poetry, music and performance that occurs every second month at Skydragon café.