Annie Ross-askmeiknow

Ask me I know, 2015. Oil on board.

Corn Mother

Corn Mother (Maria Emma), 2015. Oil on board.

Peony Crown

Peony Crown, 2015. Oil on board.

Winter Ceremony

Winter Feast, Winter Ceremony, 2015. Oil on board.

Heroes/Ghosts:
Exhibition Subtitle
annie ross

Exhibit Length
-

In a solo exhibition of painting by annie ross, the series Heroes/Ghosts reflects upon topics such as urban and state-sponsored violence, human-made climate change, and how aboriginal logic works, informs, and prevails in its midst. Dr. Annie Grace Ross is an alumna of Native American Studies at UCD (2002), whose studio practices reflect her research in social and environmental justice, indigenous sustainable technologies, grass-roots movements towards fulfillment of potential civil rights, the self and community in Home/Land. She is currently Associate Professor in First Nations Studies at Simon Fraser University.

Artist Abstract:

Heroes/Ghosts reflects upon modern heroic acts, everyday practices which heal, restore, and create a more safe world, and those thoughts, acts, prayers which remediate all broken from Modernity’s failed utopia.

Urban and state-sponsored violence, human-made climate change, starvation time, lawless political expediency, modern dispossession, depression, are tangible super monsters of our era.  Heroes/Ghosts consider whom and how Indigenous logic works and prevails in their midst, as a call for solidarity, as a revelation of sorts, for those things, upon which to build, and be in the sacred power of Creation.

Indigenous logic, Being in HomeLand, relationship to Mother Earth and her Beings, Naturals and Supernaturals are honored here.

Internal strength, faith, hope, tenacity, perseverance, humility, despite all horrors and threats, is honored through images of Heroes/Ghosts for our time: A young girl wears her traditional Indigenous hand-woven clothing, knowing her connection to her ancestors targets her to the death squads (Stigmata); a man, holding dirt in his fist, risks his life via direct action to save sacred land (Weather Changer); modernity’s omnicidal mania, where as a consequence, entire communities suffer from high rates of suicide (especially among youth), surviving thoughts of and acts of suicide (High Flier) are examples.

Every day heroes have fulfilled their responsibility to Land, performed acts to survive modernity and its colonial impositions; the many waves of colonizers, land dispossession, Indian Residential Schools.  Heroic acts are raising children within a cultural paradigm, refusing to disappear (Here, Again); and the power of the ancestors and animal helpers to affect all life, keeping these inter-species relationships active every day (Ask me, I know).

Heroes/Ghosts, paintings that are each a holy card of sorts, meaning, holding a moment, a reality, on the canvas, as a witness to horrors, injustice, the chaos of our times, but more importantly, a real, everyday, accessible set of actions by living humans, to encourage others (Sacrifice/Win [Don’t cry, Fight!]). 

i very much hope these painting prove Holy People walk among us in the street and in the village, they are inside us and outside us, and that these paintings may be a testament to we, Survivors.

 

Artist Talk
Feb 10 @ 3pm

Support the exhibition by ordering a catalogue from our shop!

Featuring 29 recent paintings and artist statement by Annie Grace Ross. Includes foreword by Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie, and introduction by Veronica Passalacqua. (2016, 32 pages). $14.95 ($13.50 members)

Sponsors
  • Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
  • UC Davis Humanities Institute
  • UC Davis Native American Faculty & Staff Association
  • UC Davis Office of Campus Community Relations
  • UC Davis College of Letters and Science