Artist File
This Artist’s Works Recall Feelings and Memories Of Home
Updated on November 28, 2023
In our column, Artist File, art advisor Diana Hamm of WK ART shares the artists that have caught her eye.
The Artist: Darcie “Ouiyaghasiak” Bernhardt is an Inuvialuk-Gwich’in artist from Tuktuyaaqtuuq, N.W.T. A recent Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University graduate, they’re currently living in Halifax. Darcie’s work is rooted in collective memory, as they seek to preserve historical and cultural practices that were intentionally suppressed. Painting in both figurative and abstract manners, Darcie creates canvases that recall community and intergenerational living, with the figurative pieces largely based on photographs from Darcie’s childhood. Rather than painting an exact facsimile of the photograph, the artist weaves in their own recollection of the time, through feeling and memory. “The idea that our memory constantly changes is something I think about often,” they say. Darcie recently started painting with rabbit skin glue, one of the original compounds in gesso. They find that it makes the canvas sparkle, giving a truer essence of the Arctic sun, particularly in the spring.
The Works: What I love about Darcie’s paintings is that the scenes themselves are rather intimate. Instead of painting on a small scale, however, they paint on large canvases, creating a picture more akin to a tableau than a photograph. “All of the images I choose are personal archives from my photo album,” says Darcie. “I’m preserving the significant moments of the people who inspired and challenged me, and it’s important to have representation of Inuvialuit and Gwich’in people.”
In Nanuk and Nanogak (2018), what had been a photograph of Darcie’s sister and grandmother ice fishing in the spring has been blown up into a four- by five-foot painting. The size allows you to feel connected to the scene before you. “Spring is one of the best times of the year in Northwest Territories because everyone is gathering for food and ice fishing, travelling and enjoying the sun,” they say.
In this work, much is left untouched with narrative, allowing the landscape and this feeling of spring to have equal presence. Painted in rabbit skin glue, the snow glimmers the way it does on crisp, sunny days in the Arctic. This is the first painting in which Darcie used rabbit skin glue, and I find the depiction of snow incredibly successful.
One of the artist’s favourite paintings is Nanuk Braiding My Hair Before Bingo (2019), as it conjures the feeling they had on Friday nights when their family went out together to play bingo. This sense of community is at the heart of their childhood, and the act of care and affection is displayed here, in the braiding. One reason Darcie loves this work is because of the bingo cards themselves. Bingo is an obsession, in terms of the aesthetic and iconography of the game; they’re continually recreating the colors of the bingo dabbers in their work.
I also love how Darcie leaves the background rather sparse. As they try to recall details, their memory is fuzzy, so they allow the painting to remain fuzzy, too. It’s this reaching for the details rather than a direct representation that is fascinating.
In Dreaming of Panigabluk (2021), Darcie painted an abstract composition and later realized they had painted their grandmother, whose name was Panigabluk, hence the title. I love that these abstract works are informed by color and pattern, and seem vastly different from the artist’s figurative paintings, even though the works remain connected through family memory and are rooted in Darcie’s upbringing.
Collecting: Darcie is represented by Feheley Fine Arts in Toronto, where they had their first solo exhibition in the summer of 2021. In 2020, they were awarded The Indigenous Artist Recognition Award from Arts Nova Scotia. Darcie was the Inuit Art Foundation’s highlighted artist at Art Toronto 2019 and is featured in the RBC Emerging Artists Project. Their work starts at $5,000.
Where to see it: Darcie is currently working on collaborative projects outside of painting. They recently created the visuals for Silla & Rise’s music video Pandemonium, where Darcie animated 9,000 watercolour stills. They’re also participating in Family Patterns, a group exhibition at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, which runs until February 2022.
Courtesy of Feheley Fine Art