Janice Tanton

Place and home have deep meaning for Janice Tanton. So it’s interesting that one of her recent paintings, Oki Niksokowa, which means Hello, All My Relations in Blackfoot, shows a group of teepees floating in monochromatic pictorial space, without background or foreground, almost as if emerging from a dense fog. 

The idea for the painting came in a dream, says Tanton. And while it’s easy to take the work in at one glance, her explanation of the symbols on each teepee opens a window into a worldview in which congenial relations between humans and the natural environment are given primary focus. 

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Janice Tanton, "Oki Niksokowa (Hello, All My Relations)", 2015, oil on linen, 48” x 96”

Janice Tanton, "Oki Niksokowa (Hello, All My Relations)", 2015, oil on linen, 48” x 96”

“It’s a very hopeful piece,” says Tanton, a self-described “white chick” who grew up in Oshawa, Ont., and moved west in 2005 for a job at the Banff Centre. There she met Siksika elder Tom Crane-Bear, a spiritual adviser who eventually adopted her into his community. Tanton left the centre in 2010 to pursue her own creative path, exploring how art can help people lead more sustainable lives.

In her work, the teepee becomes a symbol for community, bringing together profound ideas about truth, reconciliation and collective action. Living in  the traditional shelter, says Tanton, is unlike anything else: “The warmest and most wonderful thing is to sit around in a teepee at night.” 

Janice Tanton is represented by the Canada House Gallery in Banff, Gibson Fine Art in Calgary and the Effusion Art Gallery in Invermere, B.C. Her work sells for $600 to $12,000.