Canmore-based artist Jason Carter has a new exhibit on display – Crusaders of the Land – at the Portage College Museum of Aboriginal Peoples’ Art and Artifacts in Lac La Biche, Alta.
An Indigenous artist originally from the Little Red River Cree Nation, Carter’s piece was one of three put on display at the museum as part of its contemporary art project – Celebrating New Dawn.
Commissioned by the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, the exhibit’s objective is to celebrate Indigenous culture with artwork at three important junctions on the Lac La Biche campus.
One in the Indigenous Arts Centre, the new Environmental Sciences Building and the main foyer, where Carter’s painting is featured.
“The piece itself with the bright poppy colours that I use are very indicative of that new dawn, of that newness, of that bright greens which connotates spring, renewal as well as with the bison,” Carter said.
Carter’s paintings are in a prominent place at the college, spanning across the walls of the college’s entranceway. It is three individual panels, each running 30 feet long. The Crusaders of the Land painting represents the Lac La Biche Indigenous communities with charging buffalos as the main subject. Surrounding the buffalos is scenery of a calm lake with Northern Lights in the sky.
As a sculptor, painter and illustrator – Carter’s work is known internationally. In Canada alone, Carter’s art pieces are found in Calgary, Edmonton and Toronto. Internationally, his work has been displayed in Tokyo, London, Manhattan and Chicago.
His beginnings as an artist started from a gift from his sister – a piece of untouched soap stone.
“At that time I was like, ‘this is a rock in a box for Christmas, Evelyn.’ And she was like ‘no, no no! It’s soap stone! Carve it,’ ” Carter recalled.
“So I did what any 20-year-old would do, I used it as a door stop for five years.”
It wasn’t until later on that Carter revisited the soap stone. He was working as a morning cameraman and also taking night classes to become a television producer. Between his shift and night class, he had some time to spare. He grabbed the only tools he had, a screwdriver and wrench and began to carve.
“I ended up not going to class that night and never went back to the program I was taking in the evenings and totally fell in love with soap stone carving,” Carter said.
From there, Carter pursued a career in visual arts where he sculpted and painted and later on opened up the Carter-Ryan Gallery and Live Art Venue with his partner Bridget Ryan.
For Carter, to have his work displayed at in MOAPPA is an accomplishment and truly meant a lot to him.
“They’ve got the largest collection of the Indigenous Group of 7 and so for me to have work there that really greets all of the visitors to all of the college, as well as students of the college is truly humbling,” Carter added.
Along with Carter’s Crusaders of the Land as part of the exhibit, are the works of Indigenous artists Jane Ash Poitras with The Blackboard and Stewart Stenhauer’s sculpture, newokātew-ayisīn or The Four-legged Spirit Being.
“I think that I am a Cree man, so therefore my work is Indigenous. My approach to the work is very much from my own personal history, my own sense of the world and what I want to portray and what I want to have out there representing myself,” Carter said.
