David Wilson Sookinakin: Pictograph Roots

David Wilson Sookinakin, White Birch Creek – Fish Chief, 2024

David Wilson Sookinakin: Pictograph Roots

Vernon Public Art Gallery, Vernon, BC - To Mar 5

by Michael Turner

For years many of us were accustomed to receiving art histories through books. More recently, we have come to appreciate histories carried through the land. David Wilson Sookinakin’s paintings combine elements of Syilx Nation pictographic motifs and narratives with those born from present-day experience. “My art is ever evolving and is a true representation of my identity as an Interior Salish person,” he writes. “It is a natural evolution of pictographs from their ancient form to a contemporary interpretation using formlines unique to First Nations art.”