Barry Ace Unites Traditions and Technology

×

Expand

Barry Ace, “trinity suite: Bandolier for Niibwa Ndanwendaagan (My Relatives); Bandolier for Manidoo-minising (Manitoulin Island); and Bandolier for Charlie," 2015

mixed media, each 92” x 15” x 4” Photo by Earl Truelove

Barry Ace says he is honouring his Anishinaabe roots when he uses cast-off computer components – like tiny resistors and capacitors – to recreate traditional floral designs. Whether it’s digital technology or the glass beads his ancestors obtained from European traders, indigenous people have always “adapted popular culture and technology into our own cultural aesthetic,” he says.

×

Expand

Barry Ace, "Bandolier for Charlie," 2015

mixed media, 92” x 15” x 4” (detail)

Ace uses the floral patterns made from his high-tech “beads” to decorate apparel, including traditional bandolier bags. Worn over the shoulder, the bags have long been important elements of Anishinaabe ceremonial dress. These friendship bags, as they are known, are often given to respected people.

Three of Ace’s bandolier bags will be exhibited at Winnipeg’s Urban Shaman gallery from Feb. 3 to March 11. The exhibition, Niibwa Ndanwendaagan (My Relatives), is a companion show to that of Saskatchewan artist Wally Dion, who has also married computer technology to traditional aboriginal art by creating “circuit board quilts.”

×

1 of 3

Expand

Barry Ace, “Bandolier for M’Chigeeng,” 2016

mixed media, 92” x 15” x 4” Photo by Barry Ace

×

2 of 3

Expand

Barry Ace, “Aazhooningwa’igan (“It is worn across the shoulder),” 2015

mixed media, 82” x 16” x 4” Photo by Lawrence Cooke

×

3 of 3

Expand

Barry Ace, "Bandolier for Niibwa Ndanwendaagan (My Relatives)," 2015

mixed media, each 92” x 15” x 4” Photo by Earl Truelove

Prev

Next

Ace has embedded working digital tablets in the bags he is showing at Urban Shaman. One displays Ace family photographs. Another shows Anishinaabe people doing traditional dances in 1925 on Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron – an illegal activity at the time. The third bag contains photographs honouring a late friend who was like “an adopted brother.” Collectively, the three bags are called trinity suite.

The bags will be part of an exhibition this summer at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. Simultaneously, a few blocks away, Ace will exhibit other works at the Royal Ontario Museum. His beaded art is seen regularly at his Toronto dealer, Kinsman Robinson Gallery, alongside such aboriginal heavyweights as Robert Davidson, Jane Ash Poitras, Robert Houle and Norval Morrisseau. Some of Ace’s beaded textiles are part of a high-profile American touring exhibition featuring aboriginal fashions. And he is to be part of a Pride-related exhibition this summer in Vancouver curated by Adrian Stimson. (Dates and venue yet to be finalized.)

Clearly, Ace’s time has come. It has been a long climb. When asked recently how long a particularly complicated glass bead work took to complete, he replied: “Thirty years.” That’s how long it has taken him to perfect his art and break into the big leagues.

Expect to hear more about Ace in coming years. He is currently creating a set of “full regalia” decorated with computer components for powwow dancers. His Anishinaabe ancestors will undoubtedly be pleased.