Art Gallery Of Ontario

Robert Houle. Sandy Bay, 1998-99. Oil on canvas, black and white photograph + colour photograph on canvas, Masonite, 300 x 548. 4 cm. Collection of the Winnipeg Art Gallery. Acquired with funds from the President's Appeal 2000 and with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts Acquisition Assistance program © Robert Houle. Reading this work from left to right, Houle assembles a black and white photograph, a colour photograph, and three vertical rectangle canvases. In the top left colour photograph, an older white priest stands in a garden in front of an ivy covered niche with a virgin mary icon, surrounded by a bright blue summer sky. This is Father Chion who was widely liked in Sandy Bay First Nation, where the artist is from, because he spoke Saulteaux and was kind. Below this is a black and white photograph of two priests and a group of young indigenous children standing in rows on the steps of a brick building. This is an image of a First Communion at which Robert’s sister Marilyn is present. We mo