Robert Davidson: U and Eye

Exhibition Website

Sep 15 2018 - Mar 3 2019

In conjunction with Relational Aesthetics, First Nations sculptor, painter, and printmaker Robert Davidson (Haida, born 1946 in Hydaburg, Prince of Wales-Outer Ketchikan division, Alaska) exhibits a selection of works on paper. Davidson is a member of the Haida people of the Pacific Northwest. His Haida name is G̶uud San Glans, which means Eagle of the Dawn. He currently splits his time between the city of White Rock, near Vancouver, and the village of Massett, in Haida Gwaii, both in British Columbia. An accomplished artist and craftsman, in 1969 he worked to create and then raise the first totem pole in Massett in nearly a century. Since then, he has consistently championed the renaissance of Haida visual art, music, dance, and culture. Skilled in both two- and three-dimensional work, Davidson’s style reflects the unique visual language of the Haida developed over thousands of years: prominent positive and negative spaces delineated by an overall “formline,” with distinctive S- , U-, tri- , and ovoid-shapes. Over the past fifty years, in his paintings and prints Davidson’s work has evolved to include his own style of abstraction, strongly graphic, playful, and saturated with intense color.

Stockholder’s sculptural platform, The situation @ the party, 2018, acts as the viewing area for Davidson’s prints. Here, the “party” of Stockholder’s title can be seen as the grouping of all the elements in the room, including Davidson’s work. Tellingly, both exhibition titles, Relational Aesthetics and U and Eye, are puns on relationships, boundaries, and autonomy, as both Stockholder and Davidson have a long history of highlighting the lineage of other artists to whom they are indebted. As Davidson has said, “I draw on the lessons of our ancestors. Our ancestors left an incredible legacy of art and, in order to honor them, it’s our responsibility to relearn that legacy, whether it’s through the art, whether it’s through the song, or through the dance.” [1] In her exhibition invitation to Davidson, Stockholder similarly noted: “I am interested in how we, and the things we make, are at once isolated and inextricably connected to so many other people and things.”

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.          

  • Works on Paper
  • Canadian
  • Contemporary
  • Robert Davidson

Exhibition Venues & Dates