Norval Morrisseau — Copper Thunderbird — painted on what was at hand: birchbark, kraft paper, millboard, moose hide. A heavy black formline divides each figure into cells, and every cell takes one unmixed colour straight from the tube. Organs, spirit lines and lines of communication run through the bodies and between them.
The ground is never gallery white. It is bark-brown, mid-dark and warm, and the line sits on top of it like brush on birch. Symmetry appears constantly, but the hand wobbles it — nothing here is machined.