Osopikahikiwak: Jane Ash Poitras & Rick Rivet

"Osopikahikiwak" means "painters" in Cree. Poitras and Rivet are Native Canadians whose practice and concept of painting is marked by a wish to perpetuate the symbols and images whose pictorial elaboration illustrates a tragic destiny. Poitras' paintings - layered with photographs, text and hieroglyphics - are strong, bright and immediate, visually and politically charged, and full of memory. Rivet's paintings are half-toned, less obvious and more mysterious. Drawn from shamanic symbolism, his figurative images have been submerged into a quiet, melodious whole blending abstract-expressionism, primitivism and graffiti. Rivet is the recent recipient of the Eiteljore Museums Fellowship for Native American Art. Profusely illustrated with a dozen full page color plates.