Symbols of the Opposite (1977) Norval Morrisseau

Symbols of the Opposite

 - Norval Morrisseau -

Acrylic on canvas, 68" x 49", 1977

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 - Published in the Art of Norval Morrisseau (Pollock 1979) - Pg. 139 -

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Thunderbird (1987) Norval Morrisseau

Thunderbird

 - Norval Morrisseau -

Acrylic on canvas, 36" x36",1987

 - View "Thunderbird" at the Norval Morrisseau 2010 Retrospective -

Oct 16 - Nov 20, 2010

 - Kinsman Robinson Galleries, Toronto -

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Thunderbird and Swallows - Norval Morrisseau

“Art is a circle, you’re inside or outside, by accident of birth.”

Manet

Thunderbird and Swallows

Norval Morrisseau

acrylic on canvass, 24" x 30“

IN MEMORIAM - NORVAL MORRISSEAU

Norval Morrisseau died yesterday at the Toronto General Hospital of complications from Parkinson's disease. Named after a powerful and fantastic celestial cultural hero in Anishnabe mythology, Norval was indeed Copper Thunderbird. Apart from the romantic and exotic resonance of this spiritual name, it also signified a cultural context with which his magnificent artistic output could be framed. I am honoured to have been asked to write a few words about this great artist, someone I considered neejee, a friend.

It is my humble desire to acquiesce to this shaman who lived among us for a while and became a cultural revolutionary of great stature. His colourful and enigmatic imagery will continue to inspire us all, it will articulate the visual landscape of the Ojibway people he loved so much, and his art will find a voice in the polemics of contemporary art in our country. His legacy, through his art with its mythological elements, will always mesh with a multitude of colours to a particular end: emancipation, narration, resistance, prophecy and pride.

Norval, whom I first met thirty years ago while doing a research paper commissioned by the Canadian Museum of Civilization, was both a mentor and a challenge. As a young Saulteaux from Manitoba, I originally found his subject matter familiar, but nonetheless, the illustration of mythology up to that moment had always been under the governance of shamanism. Needless to say, I was spellbound yet apprehensive of what Norval was sharing with the international viewing public and by the palette he used: charcoals and ochres, red and green oxides, black and white. I immediately referenced ceremonial and ritual art, something that had always been exclusive but made inclusive by Norval. -

We talked endlessly about understanding the truth about why we make art and his impromptu visits led to numerous discussions on world culture from an Anishnabe perspective. As speakers of the language, he, Ojibwa and me, Saulteaux, we met at a level where the esoteric issues of art making were never talked about, but rather we would focus on the practical problems of finding a market that would support our art or a future that would buttress our desire to tell the Anishnabe story. He was fun, helpful, and inspiring, qualities that contributed to a continuing relationship of respect and camaraderie, of being Anishnabec. -

Over the years, Norval popped in and out of my life, but was always close enough to know that he could drop by to continue talking about the knowledge acquired through his travels, whether physical or astral, in the afternoon or evening. His nonlinear storytelling allowed us all to travel along with him to uncharted worlds of history, music and art. I treasure those moments, for they remind me what a great person he truly was.

The iconoclastic Morrisseau tableau is a sensuous interplay of paint, colour and image; a diorama delineated by the beginning of a cultural conceit based on mythology and art. Copper Thunderbird spoke of a cyclorama where people, animals, birds, fish, plants and demi-gods negotiated an existence over lands, highways, rivers and lakes.

Norval, like all innovators, had made a trajectory to contemporary cultural theory, an idea I was not to understand until quite recently. It situated Norval at the centre of a cultural transformation, contemporary Ojibwa art. This legendary artist had created a visual language whose lineage included the ancient shaman artists of the Midiwewin scrolls, the Agawa Bay rock paintings and the Peterborough petroglyphs. As a master narrator, he had a voice that thundered like the sentinel of a people still listening to the stories told since creation. Indeed, for me, he invented an interior colour space where the imagination with its paradigms, viewpoints and methods was in complicity with the potent traditions of critique and resistance. He was a conjurer, orchestrating themes that offered a voyage into the spiritual, the fantastical and the outrageous.

A Morrisseau painting is an articulation, a manifestation that verifies existence and formulates an identity completely intermingled with the past and the present. Its virtual space, invented by colour and content, is actually an inner space where mythology and reality are interchangeable. Despite his detractors and in spite of himself, Norval stood tall and unequivocal within the context and usage of the current art lexicon. The art of Norval Morrisseau is a beacon of post-colonial resistance and is unequalled in its originality - the true sign of an artist. Kitchi Meegwetch Norval, we will miss you.

Robert Houle

December 5th, 2007

Thunderbird & Snake (1965) Norval Morrisseau

Thunderbird & Snake

Norval Morrisseau

Gouache on cardboard, 32” x 43”, 1965

The Thunderbird (1970) Norval Morrisseau

The Thunderbird

Norval Morrisseau

Ink and oil on paper, 31” x 23”, 1970

 

Warrior with Thunderbirds - Norval Morrisseau - 1973

Warrior with Thunderbirds

Norval Morrisseau

47 1/2"x47",1973

"My goal is to break the barrier between the white world and mine. I wish only one thing, to be an artist and to be respected as one - and my paintings to be seen by all people."

Norval Morrisseau

Tormented Thunderbird - Norval Morrisseau

Tormented Thunderbird

Norval Morrisseau

32"x47" - 1973

"When the Jesuits came, the Indian was already around. The Indian did not understand them. He tried to understand them, what they were up to. He knew that they were going to be there for awhile. He knew how sad it was, seeing his people, how low they were put, how they had previously enjoyed living and needed to live freely again. How do we go about doing that now? We need images. We’re going to use images ourselves."

Norval Morrisseau

Man Changing into Thunderbird - Panel Six of Six - Norval Morrisseau 1977

Man Changing into Thunderbird

Norval Morrisseau

(Panel 5 of 6) - 1977 - Acrylic on Canvass - 60" x 50"

"These paintings only remind you that you're an Indian. Inside somewhere, we're all Indians. So now when I befriend you, I'm trying to get the best Indian, bring out the Indianness in you to make you think everything is sacred."

Norval Morrisseau

Man Changing into Thunderbird - Panel Five of Six - Norval Morrisseau 1977

Man Changing into Thunderbird

Norval Morrisseau

(Panel 5 of 6) - 1977 - Acrylic on Canvass - 60" x 50"

"It is our Ojibwa tradition to recall our history or obtain our history in an oral manner. It is important for our children and others to benefit through the process of continuing to recall and make history."

Norval Morrisseau

Man Changing into Thunderbird - Panel Four of Six - Norval Morrisseau 1977

Man Changing into Thunderbird

Norval Morrisseau

(Panel 2 of 6) - 1977 - Acrylic on Canvass - 60" x 50"

“My paintings are icons, that is to say, they are images which help focus on spiritual powers, generated by traditional belief and wisdom.”

Norval Morrisseau

Man Changing into Thunderbird - Panel Three of Six - Norval Morrisseau 1977

Man Changing into Thunderbird

Norval Morrisseau

(Panel 3 of 6) - 1977 - Acrylic on Canvass - 60" x 50"

"My art speaks and will continue to speak, transcending barriers of nationality, language and other forces that may be divisive, fortifying the greatness of the spirit that has always been the foundation of the Ojibwa people."

 

Norval Morrisseau

Man Changing into Thunderbird - Panel Two of Six - Norval Morrisseau 1977

Man Changing into Thunderbird

Norval Morrisseau

(Panel 2 of 6) - 1977 - Acrylic on Canvass - 50" x 60"

"The Ojibway believed the thunder to be a great massive bird called thunderbird, whose eyes shoot out lighting and thunder. The first thunder in early spring was something good to hear, for the Ojibway welcomed their protector again from its home in the south where it had been all the winter. Offerings of tobacco were placed on the ground or on water or put into stove to burn, or sacred pipes were smoked by the elders to the thunderbird in the early spring."

Norval Morrisseau

Man Changing into Thunderbird - Panel One of Six - Norval Morrisseau 1977

Man Changing into Thunderbird

Norval Morrisseau

(Panel 1 of 6) - 1977 - Acrylic on Canvass - 50" x 60"

"I can live anywhere. I can paint anywhere. I have painted six panels of the Man Who Changed Into a Thunderbird. All these paintings came from within. I don't need to isolate myself to do them. I can paint them here, there or anywhere. A pipe band could be going by, or cars."

Norval Morrisseau

Thunderbird's Spirit by Norval Morrisseau

Thunderbird's Spirit

Norval Morrisseau

c 1980s

"I transmit astral plane harmonies through my brushes into the physical plane. These otherworld colours are reflected in the alphabet of nature, a grammar in which the symbols are plants, animals, birds, fishes, earth and sky. I am merely a channel for the spirit to utilize, and it is needed by a spirit starved society."

Norval Morrisseau

Thunderbird Shaman Teaching People

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Thunderbird Shaman Teaching People

Norval Morrisseau

69"x104" -  c. 1990s

"Today we wonder and are distracted by the white man's ways that we cannot cope with. Those of us who are lucky have made it. But a lot of us are still behind, by trying to live like our white brothers and their religion, ignoring our great ancestors' culture. If one has an intelligent mind we could live side by side with our ancient ways and same time get us where we should be."

Norval Morrisseau

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