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Interdisciplinary artist showing work at Nanaimo North branch until Nov. 10
A Nanaimo artist has created an exhibit that speaks to the legacy of their grandmother’s hard work and swollen hands.
As presented by the Nanaimo Arts Council, interdisciplinary artist bailey pitt, whose artist name is bailey macabre, will show new work at the Vancouver Island Regional Library Nanaimo North branch until Nov. 10.
Macabre, a nêhiyaw, michif, Ukrainian emerging self-taught artist, is also the Indigenous engagement coordinator with the Nanaimo Art Gallery.
Their exhibit, ‘Pâkicihew (she has swollen hands)’ includes six cyanotype pieces that incorporate fragments representing family and culture, including aluminum chain, sweet grass and bead work.
“My grandmother had rheumatoid arthritis, and as she got older, [her hands] ended up getting super deformed and unhappy,” the artist said. “For me, literally her hands were swollen, but it also became this metaphor for all the things she did with her hands and with her life and how she brought that through our family.”
While creating the pieces, they said they could feel their grandmother’s presence with them during the process. And although they promised themselves they would never make art depicting residential schools, the school their grandmother was forced to go to – the Roman Catholic Church-run St. Michael’s Indian Residential School in Duck Lake, Sask. – appeared repeatedly in the pieces.
“I feel like I was guided in that direction and it felt like a really healing process for me,” the artist said. “So much of the art that I regularly do, I try to highlight that we are so much more than our trauma … but doing these pieces, I did realize the healing power of that and how it can help so many people.”
‘Pâkicihew (she has swollen hands)’ can be viewed during the library’s operating hours, Monday to Sunday.
Next to the pieces at the library will be a box and notepad for anyone who would like to “let go of grief or trauma” that the artist will burn at the end of the exhibit.
More information about can be found at www.cedarsageskoden.com.
READ MORE: Nanaimo Art Gallery’s youth summer camp will explore comic and graphic novel art
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