Blake Nelson Shaá'koon Lepine | Factory Life
Blake Nelson
Shaá'koon Lepine
Factory Life
The FOCUS Gallery, september 6 - 28, 2019
I have always been fascinated by the world of modern production and the relationship that First Nations people have to artwork. Our societies were always broken up into clans or groupings of people, and always being matrilineal, following our mothers and inheriting our identities through them. In today’s world, we still associate ourselves deeply with the symbolism of our clans or matrilineal relations. I know for myself, whenever I see something with a Killer Whale or an Eagle on it, I feel instantly drawn and connected to it, I think of my mother, my grandmother and aunties, my sister. This is part of the beautiful relationship First Nations people have with art and their deepest family connection.
With block printing, the possibilities are truly limitless, from the inking techniques, to the changes you can make to the block post printing, and the layers you can include. There were elements of simple block printing in Tlingit society and it mostly came in the form of carved wooden stamps that would be kept and used over and over for body painting in celebrations and also war times. I’ve followed in this fashion of using wood for the prints I created. My intention with creating this show is to give an extreme example of the limitless potential of traditional Tlingit art, as well as the medium of block printing. I have drawn off the obsessive nature of Andy Warhol in his factory style of art reproduction to execute a show that will attempts to create as many different variations of the same designs. I have focused on using common everyday imagery for this experience, and creating things that people have a deep connection to in today’s world. While not all have the same experience of art, there are images and themes used over and over today that do draw on a deeper connection, a connection of the emotions. I hope that through this show I can expand the examples of Tlingit art to the everyday viewer, but also to allow people to see the beauty in reproduced artworks in different variants.
FEATURED IN
Yukon News
BLAKE NELSON SHAÁ'KOON LEPINE
Blake Lepine, or Shaá’koon, was born and raised in Whitehorse, Yukon. He is of Tlingit, Han, Cree and Scottish descent and grew up with the Tlingit culture. Blake is inspired by the old designs from carving books his mother had. Over the years, Blake has practiced and perfected his own stylized form and interpretation of this art while adhering to the traditional foundations. This gives a modern voice to an ancient art, but also carries it into modern mediums other than the traditional forms of carving and painting of his ancestors. Blake has also worked with silkscreen, design, beadwork, textile work, sewing and painted leather, collage, block printing and watercolour. Through these mediums Blake has found a way of expressing his everyday experiences and life lessons through this art.
Past Exhibitions
