DAVID HANNAN, "Faunamorphic," July 3 to August 15, 2009, Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba, Brandon

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"Pile (detail)"

David Hannan, "Pile (detail)," 2009, polymerized gypsum, model railroad tree, 48" x 36" x 24".

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"Faunamorphic"

David Hannan, "Faunamorphic," 2009, polymerized gypsum, steel, foam, wood, 42"x 17" 12" on 8' pole.

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"Pile (detail)"

David Hannan, "Pile (detail)," 2009, polymerized gypsum, model railroad tree, 48" x 36" x 24".

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DAVID HANNAN, Faunamorphic

Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba, Brandon

July 3 to August 15, 2009

By Diane Nelson

The pieces in Faunamorphic are bold and dramatic. Some are contorted, others are distorted. The well-toned thighs of a wolf elegantly, almost lazily entwine upward, slowly evolving into … something not quite animal and not quite human, possibly alien, a creature out of step and out of place.

Métis artist David Hannan isn’t entirely sure what it is, though he knows it’s an exploration of his traditional heritage, from the perspective of his urban sensibility. With this, and his earlier work, the Toronto-based sculptor and painter has been attempting to find some answers. “This is the first time I’ve used wolves,” he says. “I usually use deer and coyotes, which are animals that you can find in Toronto.”

But his animals are rarely whole. Hannan splits them into pieces, as if an examination of separate elements might lead to insight. Sculpted as isolated limbs or bits of bodies, such as Untitled, 2004and Untitled, 2009, they reference vulnerability, displayed as lone items or sometimes as collectives. “I like piles,” Hannan says. “I see them all around me. There are piles of bricks, piles of dirt in the laneway. My mother used to make piles of my work all the time.”

For Pile, 2009, Hannan used taxidermy deer-head forms, artificially aged them and arranged them in a delicate stack. “The deer heads especially caught my imagination — there’s corrosion on the outside but then there’s the idea of these little green sprigs on the inside,” says Faunamorphic curator Jenny Western of the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba in Brandon. “They’re artificial — they’re not real — but you get that sense of outer decay/inner growth.”

Hannan also continues to examine whether his ‘Métis-ness’ is real or artificial He asks whether he, as an Aboriginal person who’s spent his entire life in cities — Ottawa, Bangkok and Toronto — can forge a meaningful connection to his cultural past without having experienced rural life, and whether or not traditional Métis history is disappearing. He wonders if that history is preserved in the hearts and minds of those who pay tribute to the old ways, yet embrace the changes that come with urban encroachment.

Hannan’s search for answers is ongoing, and his work is a reflection of that inner conflict. “That’s one reason why I’ve used those particular animals, including the wolf now — I think it’s because of the idea of the wolf being a teacher,” Hannan says.

There’s a strong sense of contradiction, evident in many of Hannan’s pieces. Some of his earlier works, such as the 2007 sculpture Hunt and the Hunted, involve cascading creatures. “Are they falling or is this a distress call?” Hannan wonders. The show’s eponymous work, Faunamorphic, is a truncated, sculpted haunch, draped on a pole — Hannan says it’s not so much stuck there as trying to stay on the pole.

The contradictions, and the idea of one thing morphing into another ties into what Hannan perceives as the Metis’ search for a place to belong. “Some of my earlier paintings often depicted Métis history, and family members becoming distressed animals,” he says. “But are they animals changing into people, or people turning into animals?”