79/150: The Multi-Faceted Art of Sonny Assu

Indigenous multimedia artist Sonny Assu is a member of the Ligwiłda’xw people of the Kwakwaka’wakw Nations on Vancouver Island, increasinly recognized as one of Canada’s pre-eminent contemporary artists.

Assu says the impetus behind his work is “to bring to light the dark, hidden history of Canada’s actions/inactions against the Indigenous people. I often infuse my work with wry humour in an attempt to foster a dialogue; to speak to the realities of being an Indigenous person in the colonial state of Canada.”

This video, for his exhibition at Dunlop Gallery in Regina earlier this year, is a short reveal into Assu’s unique artistic approach.

“I’ve always talked about my work as the coming together of two separate parts – a combination of pop culture and northwest coast iconography”

A Star Trek nerd, he likes to fold it into his work

“Elements of scifi, pop culture and comic books have been a stead staple in my practice for its entirety.”

Through his bold mashups of Kwakwaka’wakw iconography with pop and western aesthetics, Assu has developed a unique visual language with which to reclaim Indigenous identity and explore the powerful crosscurrents shaping his worldview – Equinox Gallery, which represents him.

A 2019 project at the Audain Art Museum called Sonny Assu & Emily Carr, Conversing Cultures, demonstrated Assu’s rejection of the Euro-Canadian perceptions. The Indigenous villages pictured by the renowned BC artist Emily Carr have become part of Canada’s historical narrative, but Assu changes this narrative by interjecting Carr’s landscape with traditional Northwest Coast design elements, such as ovoids, s-shapes, and u-shapes.

These concept are re-expressed in the many works of his ongoing series Interventions On the Imaginary.

Assu studied at Emily Carr University and earned an MFA from Concordia. His many honours include the Emily Carr Distinguished Alumnus Award, BC Creative Achievement Award in First Nations Art , Hnatyshyn Foundation’s REVEAL Indigenous Art Award (2017), and the Eiteljorg Contemporary Arts Fellowship (2021). Assu has exhibited widely in Canada and internationally, with works held in public and private collections across Canada, the UK, USA, and Australia.

Assu’s work is included in numerous major public collections, including the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa), Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto), Museum of Anthropology (Vancouver), and the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Sonny Assu’s website, here

Instagram, here

At Equinox Gallery, here.

An interview with the National Gallery of Canada magazine, here.

Image at top of post: Sonny Assu, Peer-to-Peer, 2023, wool and cotton Jacquard tapestry (weaver: Sophia Borowska) 42″ x 75 1/4″

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This is No. 79 in 150 Artists, an ongoing series on Canadian artists you should know.