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Description

A drawing on a single-sided piece of white paper. The drawing is vertically oriented. At the top is a crescent moon-like being with a decorated eye patch, and a mouth. Protruding from coastal mountains is the head of a thunderbird(?) with an arrow extending outwards from its mouth. The mountains divide the scale of the images; the images above the mountains are distant and aerial, and everything below the mountains is at close range and is underwater. Just below the surface of the water is a harpoon tip on a rope; the rope has a single loop with a small human skull lightly drawn within the loop. To the right of the harpoon tip is a human-like being positioned headlong in the water; the human-like being is decorated with hair, dots descending down the neck, a small human skull on the forearm, and a rib-like pattern drawn on the torso. Kelp, intermixed with fifteen human skulls of varying sizes, extends from the head of the human-like being to the seabed at the bottom of the page. Within the kelp is a fish appearing to ingest a human skull. The fish body is decorated with curving lines with intermediate dots, and the tail fin is drawn as a human-like face. The artist's signature, a "M" with a line through it and two dots, is positioned in the bottom right corner. The reverse-side of the paper is blank.

History Of Use

These 62 small works (3223/1-62) comprise a collection of drawings in pencil, ink, pencil crayon, and felt pen made by the artist between the years 1968 and 2015. During that period the artist has identified himself by the following names: Ron Hamilton; Hupquatchew; Ki-ke-in; Kwayatsapalth; Chuuchkamalthnii; and Haa’yuups. The drawings are, for the most part, applied to the backs of bookmarks acquired from a range of bookshops; some are applied to other pieces of paper or cutouts from his earlier silkscreen prints. Many of the images represent killer whales, often in conjunction with accoutrements and symbols of Nuu-chah-nulth whaling. The juxtaposition of bookmark and representation of Nuu-chah-nulth himwits’a, or narrative, is a deliberate and meaningful placement of two distinct knowledge systems in relationship with one another. Ephemeral drawings like these were not created for the market; the artist has long made them for himself and sometimes as gifts for relatives and friends; they are a way of sharing his knowledge and experience about Nuu-chah-nulth ways of knowing, thinking about, and being in this world; they are expressive of what he calls kiitskiitsa: marks made with intention.

Item History

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