| ARTIST BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: | David Garneau embodies Western Canada through his art and ancestry, including a direct link to Edmonton’s historic Garneau neighbourhood, the 1885 Resistance, and the Riel Rebellion.
Born in 1962, Garneau gravitated to capturing the likenesses of his fellow Edmontonians in sculpture. While he knew of his Métis origins, Garneau considered himself non-Indigenous until an exhibition publicised his ancestry. He writes that the Garneau community near the University of Alberta “was my great, great grandfather Laurent’s farm…. [H]e and his friends had terrorized the inhabitants of Fort Edmonton by hollering and shooting up the place… during the 1885 Resistance…. Laurent was almost lynched for his (unspecified) involvement with the Riel Rebellion.”
While his work sold well, Garneau left Edmonton for the University of Calgary to earn a BFA in Painting and Drawing with Distinction (1989) and an MA in English Literature (1993). He also studied and later taught at the Alberta College of Art + Design, before moving to teach Visual Arts at the University of Regina.
As a painter, penciller, critic, editor, curator, and creator of video, performance art pieces, beaded landscapes, and painted roadkill, Garneau addresses history, masculinity, Settler and Métis identities, and “the Riel cult.” He says, “I am proud to be a Métis man. But this identity is contested; it has no settled meaning for me [and my] inbetweenness.”
Garneau’s oil paintings have toured Canada in group and solo exhibitions including Cowboys and Indians (and Métis?), and been collected by the Canadian Museum of Civilization and the Parliament of Canada, among others institutions. He’s spoken in New York, San Diego, Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide, and has curated Australia-Canada Indigenous art exchanges. He has curated exhibitions including The End of the World (as we know it), and participated in the Sakewewak First Nations Artists’ Collective. |