BY ELIZABETH NOLAN
Artcraft Manager
Artcraft will be celebrating the month of August in an especially fitting way this year, with a Showcase exhibition featuring contemporary Coast Salish artist Margaret August taking pride of place on the Mahon Hall stage.
August (who uses the pronouns they/them/their) is a two-spirit Coast Salish artist and a member of shíshálh Nation. Into the Wild is an exhibition that explores gender identity, and what identifying as “two-spirit” means, revealing contemporary Coast Salish art and stories of living in the modern context through tradition.
“Where Indigenous identity and LGBTQ+ identity overlap and shape their lived realities, or through an intersectional lens, we can see how the unique experiences of two-spirit individuals are shaped by their Indigenous background and their gender,” August’s artist statement explains.
August’s new body of work therefore dissects and highlights the gifts of two-spirit people in the framework of the artist’s own unique perspective, while encouraging an understanding that two-spirit identity requires recognizing the intersectional nature of their experiences. The show will also include pieces from August’s Rebirth series, demonstrating the artistic building blocks that brought them into a new type of self-expression.
August was born in 1983 in the traditional unceded L ək ̓ ʷəŋən and W̱SÁNEĆ territories, now referred to as Victoria, B.C. Their work is inspired by the archival art pieces of their ancestors in combination with their spiritual encounters with nature.
August originally began developing their artistic talents at an early age. They were introduced to Coast Salish art through the late Tlingit artist Mark Preston in 2016, which then led them to seek guidance and mentorship with Coast Salish artist Dylan Thomas from 2016-23. This mentorship and others have helped August expand their talent and practice to creating art in multiple mediums such as serigraph and giclee prints, glass, cedar sandblasted pieces and wood carving (including a special learning trip to Haida Gwaii this past month to study with a renowned female carver.)
During a recent visit to their studio in Quw’utsun, August outlined just how necessary their six-year mentorship program with Thomas was for learning the foundations of traditional Coast Salish art before attempting to stretch the rules. Artists such as Susan Point, John Marston and Luke Marston have been a huge influence, offering a sense of permission to push the boundaries.
“I still have a hard time breaking outside those lines,” August said. “I mean, I don’t think it has to happen overnight either. I think it’s something that is gradually happening and I think each time I get to present my work in a way that I am, with exhibiting it, it just kind of pushes me to go further.”
Unlike the northern coast’s formline style that many are familiar with, Coast Salish art features symmetrical designs that balance positive and negative space. Designs are built on shapes such as trigons and trigon variations, crescents, variation of crescents, circles and ovals. The themes shíshálh Nation (now called Sechelt and the Sunshine Coast) depicted often had to do with family crests and histories — salmon, thunderbirds, orca and medicine people — while the colours used were those that could be found in nature or produced with available materials, meaning black, reds and ochres.
August’s work builds on those foundations but incorporates colours such as lavender and plum, while telling new stories important to them — especially those exploring their two-spirit identity. The traditional connections to that identity have been challenging to discover since colonial acts obliterated much language and culture.
“I’m still exploring what that means, but there’s no wrong or right. I just think there is something that makes me really different from other people,” August said. “And I’ve always felt that in a way that I don’t think I really honoured until I really branched on my own last year — so this is still pretty new to me.
“But I feel more comfortable in myself, being on my own with this exploration, with this continuation, and building on the experience of my mentorship for six years. I’m glad I dedicated that time to learning and finetuning and really perfecting what I do today and will continue to build in the future.”
The Showcase runs Friday, Aug. 1 through Monday, Aug. 25 during Artcraft gallery hours (10 to 5 daily) at Mahon Hall. Members of the public are encouraged to attend the opening reception from 6 to 8 p.m. on Aug. 1 and an artist talk on Aug. 2 starting at 1 p.m.
For more information, visit saltspringarts.com/exhibitions.