EDWARD POITRAS, "13 Coyotes," January 21 to April 22, 2012, MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina

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"13 Coyotes"

Edward Poitras, "13 Coyotes," 2011, installation (detail), photograph.

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"13 Coyotes, installation (detail)"

Edward Poitras, "13 Coyotes, installation (detail)," 2011, photograph.

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"13 Coyotes"

Edward Poitras, "13 Coyotes," 2011, installation (detail), photograph.

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"Cell (detail)"

Edward Poitras, "Cell (detail)," 2010, mixed media. Collection of the artist. Photo: Ken Mayer.

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EDWARD POITRAS, 13 Coyotes

MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina

January 21 to April 22, 2012

By Margaret Bessai

Coyote, the Trickster, has been part of Edward Poitras for decades — in early works a symbol of survival and renewal, more recently a strategic mask allowing concealment and contradiction. In this new work, Poitras combines elements of his practice — sculpture, primary cultural documents, found objects and installation. “The 13 coyotes in this exhibition speak to Poitras’ concerns with community and how we define and experience connectedness,” says curator Michelle LaVallee. “Throughout his life and art, Poitras has contemplated structures of inclusion and exclusion within communities, whether geographically determined or across established boundaries. For him, concepts of community and connectedness, including nationalism and religious beliefs, simultaneously operate as agents of division. His work questions these structures of community, and asks how we move beyond the continuous construction of division.”

Noted for his powerful installations, Poitras represented Canada at the 1995 Venice Biennale, and he received a 2002 Governor General’s Award in Media and Visual Arts. He’s a member of the George Gordon First Nation, and resident of Treaty Four Territory.