Love Bears
Artist Statement
Love Bears offers a resolution to the inherent contradiction that involves accepting both the light and dark sides of our humanness.
People often ask me how my Haida lineage informs my contemporary practice. The answer is that I am the product of a colonial past. I have resisted it and fought every step of the way. All aspects of authority or superiority make my skin prickle, and I have lived with a feeling of anger most of my life, sometimes, I haven’t even known why I am so angry, but then all I have to do is look at the way people of difference are treated and it seems justified.
My previous work has interrogated popular abuses of power in order to identify the false virtue of repressed anger as it is channelled into socially acceptable, and oftentimes, violent and oppressive human behaviour. I now feel I can offer up some solutions to those problems.
Love Bears explores a different kind of power - the power of love and all that love encompasses - humility, acceptance, compassion and vulnerability. These sculptures are a personal story of how I found my way to understanding that true power is not domination and oppression, but compassion and vulnerability. The bears are a metaphor of dark and light. They represent a balancing of masculine and feminine energies; a union of opposites that exist not only between two people but also within each one of us.
A female and a male bear gaze lovingly into each other’s eyes. They are more human than bear. They are bears becoming human or they are humans in love who resemble bears. They are supremely powerful creatures - fearsome animals who have surrendered to the simplicity of staring into the other’s eyes to connect to the love that’s already there.
The forms are hand-sculpted out of wax and then 3D scanned. I used photogrammetry technology to document thousands of facial angles which were then used as the underlying structure for the heads and faces of the bears. The result is extremely accurate self-portraits of myself and my partner. Love Bears is our love story.
And maybe the love story continues to expand from there. These bears are not just myself and my partner, or any two people, they become symbols of a potential for love that is available to us all.
In First Nations mythology, bears become human to help us accept aspects of our shared humanity. They show us protection, nurturance, healing, and other sacrifices made in the name of love. Spirit animal transformation embodies characteristics of sadness and struggle to reveal hidden, unknown potentials. The guidance often disobeys conventional rules of social behaviour in order to catalyze intuitive problem-solving and sensory intelligence.
I am grateful to my Haida ancestors, Northwest Coast art and design, and to all First Nations teachings for modelling a way forward that reflects an acceptance of our connection to all living beings. Our togetherness is the only thing that matters.
Love Bears offers a resolution to the inherent contradiction that involves accepting both the light and dark sides of our humanness.
People often ask me how my Haida lineage informs my contemporary practice. The answer is that I am the product of a colonial past. I have resisted it and fought every step of the way. All aspects of authority or superiority make my skin prickle, and I have lived with a feeling of anger most of my life, sometimes, I haven’t even known why I am so angry, but then all I have to do is look at the way people of difference are treated and it seems justified.
My previous work has interrogated popular abuses of power in order to identify the false virtue of repressed anger as it is channelled into socially acceptable, and oftentimes, violent and oppressive human behaviour. I now feel I can offer up some solutions to those problems.
Love Bears explores a different kind of power - the power of love and all that love encompasses - humility, acceptance, compassion and vulnerability. These sculptures are a personal story of how I found my way to understanding that true power is not domination and oppression, but compassion and vulnerability. The bears are a metaphor of dark and light. They represent a balancing of masculine and feminine energies; a union of opposites that exist not only between two people but also within each one of us.
A female and a male bear gaze lovingly into each other’s eyes. They are more human than bear. They are bears becoming human or they are humans in love who resemble bears. They are supremely powerful creatures - fearsome animals who have surrendered to the simplicity of staring into the other’s eyes to connect to the love that’s already there.
The forms are hand-sculpted out of wax and then 3D scanned. I used photogrammetry technology to document thousands of facial angles which were then used as the underlying structure for the heads and faces of the bears. The result is extremely accurate self-portraits of myself and my partner. Love Bears is our love story.
And maybe the love story continues to expand from there. These bears are not just myself and my partner, or any two people, they become symbols of a potential for love that is available to us all.
In First Nations mythology, bears become human to help us accept aspects of our shared humanity. They show us protection, nurturance, healing, and other sacrifices made in the name of love. Spirit animal transformation embodies characteristics of sadness and struggle to reveal hidden, unknown potentials. The guidance often disobeys conventional rules of social behaviour in order to catalyze intuitive problem-solving and sensory intelligence.
I am grateful to my Haida ancestors, Northwest Coast art and design, and to all First Nations teachings for modelling a way forward that reflects an acceptance of our connection to all living beings. Our togetherness is the only thing that matters.