7 minute read
The wonders of Woodlands Art
ABOVE: Village Party, 36” x 66” Acrylic on unstretched canvas
Patrick Paul
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EXPLORES THE WONDERS OF WOODLANDS ART
Patrick Paul is an Ojibwe artist who paints in the tradition of the Woodlands school of art, as introduced to the world by Norval Morrisseau, whose father Potan, a respected Shaman and elder, pioneered the style. It draws inspiration from rock pictography and sacred birch bark scrolls to express concepts found in Indigenous spirituality. The Woodlands style translates this knowledge using a distinctive visual vocabulary of boldlycoloured figurative forms and shapes on a single plane articulated by thick black outlines.
Woodlands art is a representation of a culture whose myths are rooted in the Canadian Shield, where rugged forests, erratic boulders, and glistening waters welcomed the first human inhabitants following the recession of the glaciers eons ago. There is no art more deeply centred in this vast and ancient land. Patrick Paul was born in Winnipeg and currently lives with his family in Dauphin, located in Treaty 2 territory. He never imagined taking up a paint brush until last April when creativity and a desire to explore his heritage captured his imagination. Patrick’s imagery depicts animals, community across the generations, and the landscapes, traditions, and legends that filled his heart while growing up in Thunder Bay and northwestern Ontario, where his extended family calls home.
“A lot of the cultural roots and my understanding of them came from the Ojibwe teachings I received at Whitesand First Nation in Ontario (3 hours north of Thunder Bay) where I went to elementary school for two years,” Patrick recalls. “I learned the principles of the seven sacred teachings, and to speak the Ojibwe language. My dad’s auntie was the teacher and a lot of the lessons she shared are still with me today.” Those lessons and memories are central to Patrick’s art, and are reflected in three of his favourite creations.
“‘Familiar Lands’ is heavily influenced by a Norval Morrisseau piece called ‘In the Land of the Giants’. I wanted
to make references to it and show the characters as I see them in my imagination,” Patrick says. “The scene in the painting is located in the same places where Morrisseau painted, so the land we share is familiar to us both.” ‘Drumming Circle’ has a poignant story behind it, reflecting the sense of isolation that so many of us have experienced during the pandemic. For Patrick, it is about yearning for the sights and sensations of his community. “This is my favourite piece right now, and I got very emotional working on it for four days,” Patrick says. “It’s been three long years since my family and I have been to a powwow, and that’s totally heartbreaking. I could feel the drums on my chest and under my feet while I was painting. I had to take a lot of breaks while working on this canvas.”
‘Village Party’ uses variations of tone in a manner that differs from Patrick’s other examples. Colours transit across the background from left to right in support of the journey taken by the characters in the foreground. “It’s the first large piece I ever did. A medicine man and a Shaman lead the spirits of the animals from the physical to the spiritual reality.”
No doubt collectors should be very enthusiastic about this up-and-coming artist, and evidently they are! “My work is selling faster than I can paint it sometimes,” Patrick says. “I’m very pleased.” Patrick Paul’s work is a dazzling, authentic expression of the great school of Woodlands art. He is well on his way to preserving the style for future generations to cherish as both strikingly beautiful images and as ancient teachings g
ABOVE: Familiar Lands, acrylic on 24” x 41” Unstretched Canvas. (LEFT) Drumming Circle, 20” x 24” acrylic on Stretched Canvas
Patrick Paul’s work can be viewed and purchased at: www.facebook.com/ABsoluteORIGINAL
Creating stunning images
BY TAKING VECTOR GRAPHICS TO THE EXTREME
gallery by Michael Bussière
ShapeVision is an Ottawa startup whose mission is to create photo-based art and applications with their unique Extreme Vector Graphics™ (EVG) software. Its found-ing partners Martin Brooks and John Spence have extensive experience in the Ottawa tech and education communities. Previously, Spence directed the Communications Research Centre’s Virtual Classroom program, and Brooks led NRC’s artificial intelligence research group, where they pioneered pedagogy and technology for collaborative learning over the CANARIE network with the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board and educational, health, and cultural partners across Canada.
EVG creates a new representation of digital photographs by determining and assembling up to hundreds of thousands of highly complex coloured shapes. “It’s a fractal jigsaw puzzle,” says Brooks. ShapeVision’s EVG takes the scalable vector graphics (SVG) image format to new levels, automatically computing vector graphics shapes from photographs through advanced mathematics. Brooks told me that, “while developing the concept, I worked on the math for a full year before getting down to cod-ing.” enlargement. Zoom into a JPG and even a high-quality file becomes a blurry field of squares. EVG images can be printed without distortion at any size. ShapeVision art starts with the pixels and uses powerful cloud computing resources to produce an EVG transformation that can be flawlessly printed at any size. The ShapeVision software has multiple knobs and switches to control the shape algorithms, which artists can use to
generate an unlimited number of shape models from which they can select and combine into visual compositions.
The ShapeVision art project demonstrates the analytical power of EVG by producing large-format prints 5x3 feet or more, using archival-quality printers, ink, and papers for lasting brilliance. Seen from afar, ShapeVision art looks painterly, but approach the print to mere centimetres to discover more and more shape components. Brooks hand-ed me a small flashlight and magnifying glass to examine a JPEG I provided. Rather than seeing pixels, I could easily detect myriad shapes within shapes which were re-markably natural-looking, with high complexity at the boundary between adjacent shapes. There is a lot to look at in ShapeVision art, inviting repeated engagement and continued fascination.
Hidden Shapes Of Nature™ is ShapeVision’s flagship art theme, exploring the beauty of rural Ottawa’s diversity of animals, plants, and microenvironments.
ShapeVision supports the artistic vision of Ross Photography, “to communicate a message of the pending collapse of our Mother Earth if more of us do not take the time to better acquaint ourselves with our only home.” ShapeVision enables an up-close examination of our surroundings, revealing the profound complexity in the seemingly simplest scenes. “On my family farm in the Ottawa valley, I attempt to bring the beauty and diversity of the natural world to the attention of others and show just how much there is in even a small area like my farm,” Ross says. To see the world in a grain of sand, as it were.
Brooks is looking at the bigger picture. “By controlling the number of shapes and their level of detail, Extreme Vector Graphics™ underlies a wide range of applications, from machine vision for automated vehicles to medical image analysis to a new type of digital paint for artists,” he says. ShapeVision’s longterm technical objective is to implement shape algorithms as hardware, and to provide predesigned IP for use in chip design, thereby putting extreme vector graphics into the hands of artists and designers everywhere.
ShapeVision images must be seen to be believed. Check out Hidden Shapes Of Nature™ artworks at https://hiddenshape sofnature.com. An exhibit featuring large images is planned for 2022 at SaintVincent Hospital, Covid permitting g
Forest by ShapeVision, from photo by Ross Photography‚ vector graphics ink jet print 63” x 42” on metallic pearl paper.
ShapeVision creates and sells fine art in collaboration with Ross Photography (https://altross.wixsite.com/ rossphotography), Golden Owl Photo (www.goldenowlphoto.com), and social change startup Radical Connections (https://www.radicalconnections.ca).
Interest in ShapeVision technology, applications, and art may be directed to brooks@shapevision.biz
