Red Worker

October 17 – November 29, 2008
Exhibition

About the Program

Wally Dion is a member of the Yellow Quill First Nation (Salteaux) who probes issues of First Nations identity. His art has typically consisted of large-scale painted portraiture, often addressing First Nations class struggles in modern Canadian life, particularly in his home province of Saskatchewan. The large-scale paintings in Red Worker adopt social realist aesthetic tropes, directly referencing the propaganda posters of the Chinese Revolution and the iconography of the Soviet Proletariat. Through this knowing appropriation of form, the artist is able to speak to the effacement of First Nations contributions to the building and definition of Canada and the Canadian cultural identity. Utilizing a collapsed stylistic paradigm within global capitalism, the Red Worker series dynamically explores the contentious arenas of institutional history, memory, racism, class struggle, pride, and identity. In doing so, these works are able to reveal and question how representational practices can both open and close such complex and ongoing social dialogues.

Artist

Wally Dion

Curator

Glenn Alteen

Identifier

2008.1017 RED

Collection

grunt gallery Programming Archive

Location

grunt gallery (second location)
116-350 E. 2nd Ave, Vancouver, BC, Canada, V5T 4R8
Unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ/selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations

In copyright. For uses beyond Fair Dealing, research requests, corrections, takedown requests, or other inquiries, please contact grunt gallery: archives@grunt.ca