RECLAMATION features the work of Charlene Vickers, an artist of Anishnabe background from Wauzhushk Onigum First Nation currently living and working in Vancouver. Using painting, textiles and installation to explore the intersection between the contemporary and the traditional, Vickers considers her Ojibway ancestry, racial perception, authenticity, viewership and commodification. In examining the social and cultural significance inherent to objects, Vickers uses repetition, juxtaposition and abstraction to create new objects that investigate memory, territory and culture. With a strong attention to detail and material, Vickers actively references traditional Ojibway artistic techniques in the precision of her process and the shape of her compositions. Her work embodies a process of discovery, both of the self, and of the past and present.
CHARLENE VICKERS attended Emily Carr Institute of Art + Design to study painting and holds a BA in Critical Studies and an MFA in Contemporary Arts, both from Simon Fraser University. Her work has been exhibited internationally in Amsterdam, New York City and Indianapolis, and locally at Grunt Gallery, Richmond Art Gallery, and most recently at the Vancouver Art Gallery in the exhibition Vancouver Special: Ambivalent Pleasures. Vickers’ work is held in the permanent collection of the Museum of Anthropology at UBC, Vancouver. |