Aren't these paintings amazing? They were created by Christi Belcourt, a Metis visual artist who lives in Whitefish Falls, Ontario. I found these images while looking into traditional Metis floral motifs and crafts online. Back in February, I did a blog post after a recent trip to the ROM, and its First People's gallery, where I was particularly inspired by the "Bandolier Bags" and other examples of floral motifs in Ojibway beadwork found there. Belcourt's paintings take inspiration from similar beadwork traditions, but also incorporate the artist's knowledge of healing plants and Metis plant medicines.
In her artist's statement, Christi writes:
"In 1993, what began as a simple experiment to paint flowers inspired by the traditional beadwork patterns of Métis and First Nation women I’d been exposed to since childhood, has now evolved into the course my work has continued to follow since. This journey has led me on an exploration into traditional Métis art, Métis history, environmental issues, and contemporary issues that face the Métis in modern times."
Below, is the cover of her book, Medicines to Help Us, which showcases her beautiful paintings of wild plants, along with the names of each plant in four Aboriginal languages, and its healing properties. This is definitely on my book wishlist. I'm so inspired seeing this collision of art/plants/natural medicine.
If you look closely you can recognize familiar wild plants; roses + rose hips, strawberry, irises, yarrow, plantain...
1 comments:
Nice find! We saw similar, in the beading work at the ROM. Just love the fine detailed work and the colours!
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