May 18 to August 18, 2019
Over the past three and a half decades, Musqueam artist Susan Point has received wide acclaim for her accomplished and remarkably wide-ranging oeuvre that forcefully asserts the vitality of Coast Salish culture, both past and present.
During this time she has produced an extensive body of prints and an expansive corpus of sculptural work in a wide variety of materials that includes glass, resin, polymer, stone, bronze, concrete, steel, wood, acrylic paint, and paper. The scale of her work is also wide in scope, ranging from the intimacy of the jewelry she produced in the early 1980s to the monumental character of the public sculptures she continues to make today.
Susan Point: Spindle Whorl is a touring exhibition from the Vancouver Art Gallery that showcases 40 works, which are accompanied by a special selection of 14 works borrowed directly from the artists’ studio for the Kelowna Art Gallery.
The spindle whorl has been a persistent motif in Point’s work since the beginning of her career. Comprised of a small wooden disk with a rod inserted through its centre, this tool was traditionally used by Coast Salish women to prepare wool that would be woven into garments and ceremonial blankets. Point has drawn upon the spindle whorl to provide a formal structure for her art while combining this motif with a uniquely Salish vocabulary of circles, crescents and curved triangles, elements that distinguish the art of her people from the form line-based art of more northern peoples.
Susan Point: Spindle Whorl is organized and circulated by the Vancouver Art Gallery and curated by Grant Arnold, Audain Curator of British Columbia Art and Ian M. Thom, former Senior Curator–Historical
Friday, May 17, 2019
5 to 6 pm | Curator Talk & Tour with Grant Arnold
6 to 8 pm | Opening Reception
This is a free event, open to members and guests by invitation.
Thursday, June 13, 2019
6 pm | Tour of the exhibition led by artist Susan Point
This is a free event open to the public.
