Re-present-ing Rock Art

Abstract

Rock art conjures up images of the distant past. Petroglyphs and pictographs on the sheer rock faces above Lake Superior and on those of other waterways, such as the Milk River in Alberta or Canyon del Muerto in Arizona, attract tourists and scholars who puzzle over their age and meaning. To many Natives, these rock-art sites are considered sacred and private. This traditional attitude, however, is challenged by a number of contemporary Canadian artists of Aboriginal descent, who regard these rock art images as sources of inspiration and iconography for new art works executed in various media. Rock art has been appropriated. Contemporary artists are reclaiming this as part of their history, and this recycling and reusing of existing is a widespread phenomenon among both self-taught and university-educated artists. This paper intends to examine some of these new art works with ancient as evidence of altered contexts and blurred distinctions between past and present. Appropriation is a strategy common to postmodernism because to appropriate is to dismantle traditional notions of (Solomon-Godeau 1984, 81). In fact, Peter Wolheim says, we must dispense with concepts of exclusive authorship and originality in favour of a notion of creative interdependence and received imagery (Wolheim 1986, 26). Contemporary artists, however, are using these images because they are old and, therefore, historical. Most importantly, rock art images are indigenous and immediately recognizable as Native rather than as another European import. The re-presentation of rock art as new is as varied as the artists who employ it. Two Alberta artists who use rock art as an inspiration and as a sign of identity are Joane Cardinal-Schubert (1942- ) and Jane Ash Poitras (1951- ). Their references to rock art forms are not duplicates of those found on rock faces, but rather new designs, which emulate the linear character of rock art images. The angularity of figures painted in this mode by Cardinal-Schubert reveal the Milk River petroglyphs as source, whereas Ash Poirras uses Milk River forms, but also adopts a distinctive figure type found only in Arizona. In Northern Ontario, Norval Morrisseau and his followers in the Woodland School use rock art images to convey the legends and stories of the Ojibwa. In addition to Morrisseau, Debassige and Angeconeb also alter the rock art by adding color and internal detail to the rock art images. An exception is Carl Beam's art, for when he employs a rock art image in one of his paintings or prints, the forms re tain the red ochre color and the silhouetted shapes as found on the old traditional rock sites. Why Beam's recycling of rock art is different from the other artists appears to be a matter of personal choice rather than one of background or artistic training. The Alberta Artists How does the use of traditional rock art by contemporary artists differ? Starting with the Alberta artists, Joane Cardinal-Schubert uses rock art examples in her new art, but also uses the authentic ones to inspire her own versions. Jane Ash Poitras, who lives and works in Edmonton, has used image types from the Milk River, but has also borrowed pictographic designs from the southwestern United States to exert her view that all groups have an affinity that is not limited to Canada alone. Both Cardinal-Schubert and Ash Poitras were raised as non-Natives and only began to explore their heritage as adults. They have both achieved university degrees in art. Joane Cardinal-Schubert In Cardinal-Schubert's painting The Earth is for Everyone (1984) pictographic images are situated below an arched landscape, capturing the placement of the Milk River petroglyphs on steep rock coulees formed by the Milk River, which is just north of the Montana border; the rock art designs are within view of the Sweet Grass Hills, a spiritual place, and, although sacred in themselves, are subordinate in function and meaning to the location itself (Vastokasl992, 37). …