Beneath the Mask: Symbols as a Healing Phenomenon

As a child I experienced in some way the systematic washing out of red blood to white blood. In the exhibition Beneath the Mask: Symbols as a Healing Phenomenon, visual scribing is an emotional description of how damaging the enforcement of an alien cultural system on a First Nations child can be. The symbols and imagery are depicting the pain experienced as a child growing up in a family/community environment that had been subjected to character annihilation, cultural cleansing—white washing of red to white. Intergenerational trauma is real, it is what I and many have experienced because of the Residential School system, my father being one. It has also reinforced the strength within myself. I paint in a symbolically scribed manner for my child, my grandchildren, and their children to know their history and to identify and accept who we are as whole people. To deny any part of who we are would be to annihilate and abandon ourselves. – Darla Fisher-Odjig

Darla Fisher-Odjig is a Lambton County-based First Nations (Ojibway, Odawa, Potawatami) artist, poet, and art therapist. She has published a book of her poetry and drawings entitled My Healing Journey: A Walk in Two Worlds and is the recipient of an Ontario Arts Council grant. Her work is held in numerous private and public collections, including the Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada Aboriginal Art Collection. Additional information can be found on the artist’s website, https://fisherodjig.wordpress.com/

The Judith & Norman Alix Art Gallery extends thanks to the Thames Art Gallery for their contribution to the exhibition.

Image credit: Darla Fisher-Odjig, The Inception, 2021–22, acrylic on canvas