Art Articles & Reviews

He goes by the name of Ice Bear. I discovered this artist when he created murals the three-dimensional murals on the walls of Sidney, and later when his big blue sculpture took its place on Victoria’s Mermaid Wharf. There‘s been a lot of development since then, and I caught up with him this time at Eagle Feather Gallery (904 Gordon Street, 388-4330, eaglefeathergallery.com until February 28). Ice Bear is not the name of the artist I met. Ice Bear is the name of “that person who is with you,” he told me. “My totem is Ice Bear. We celebrate the gift, not the person. It is the creator that gives you the gift.” Many gifts have been given to this man. Born into the Ojibway nation, one of the Anishnabe people, he recalled “it wasn’t like that when I was a young man.” He was taught to be ashamed of who he was. Yet he was personable and talented, and spent twenty five years successfully working as a commercial artist and illustrator. The fruits of that experience have served him well, as evidenced by his dynamic renderings of a polar bear and a grizzly. Despite the popularity of this illustrational style, “it’s not what I would consider a painting,” he admitted. Since then “the great wall has come down. It’s ok to be me,” he smiled. “My time was later, when I had dispelled all the bitterness, and those things no longer concerned me. When I reached the age of 50 I asked the questions - do I choose life, or death? If I choose life, what do I have to do to gather up the strength to do what I must do?” His painting, its processes and goals, moved to a higher level. A major part of the current show involves large acrylics on canvas (and the giclée prints which he makes from them). The understructure is abstract, swaths of colour representing a plane of existence beyond the ordinary. “I work intuitively. It takes sort of looking at something, waiting for something to emerge.” These abstract grounds perhaps represent “the ethereal plane,” he told me, “the plains that we cross when we go to our next level of ascension.” From these plaina emerge detailed images of the history of his people: men on horseback, faces in the sky, a hoop dancer with energy streaming around him. He calls these details “my particulars”. For him, the particulars “actually mean something.” He takes pains to make the details of a warrior’s headband correct, the way the hair and feathers are worn. “It’s an atavistic thing. There’s much more emotion when I am painting the blood - our culture. There are certain things I have to reach for, I have to sort of extract them.” His art practice goes on. “My quest is not just along the path,” he remarked. “It’s all around the sides too. I didn’t think I’d be doing what I’m doing today. I get great satisfaction from the exploration.” On show are four bronze sculptures, sinuous and entirely abstract. They consider the big questions in life: What is worth living for? What is worth dying for? What is eternal? He explains to me that most sculpture is solid - like a fist. His approach is open, like a gesture. “The main information is conveyed by the spaces between.” The modern world is like that. As Marshall McLuhan said, I seem to be a verb. We looked at a highly polished bronze, less than a metre tall. “Hand polished,” he told me, “no machines. It took hundreds of hours, but the time is irrelevant.” As we move around the light it catches moves too. “It gives me an opportunity to say something in six different ways.” Why haven’t we seen more of his work here? “It’s hard to exist in the mainstream galleries because I’m not from around here,” he laughed. Locally, only northwest coast artist need apply. “It’s forced us to go further afield.” The art of Ice Bear is making its effect far and wide. We talked of his work in the Museum of Nature in Ottawa, the Peace River Gallery in Fort St. John, in Sacramento and New York and a forthcoming showing at the Ravens and Eagles Gathering in Qualicum April 13-15 this year. Eagle Feather Gallery will be featuring Ice Bear's paintings at the upcoming Canadian Aboriginal Arts & Culture Exhibition in May, located in Annecy, in the French Alps. In November, the art will be featured in a solo show at the gallery of the American Indian Arts Council in North Dallas. Clearly there was much more to talk about. I came away with a feeling that the artist’s totem spirit had entered into communication with me, and for that I am grateful. I encourage you to spend some time with Ice Bear, and receive the message for yourself. You can find it at the gallery or at www.icebearstudio.com