This unique touring exhibition of more than 70 stone sculptures, prints, and tapestries is drawn from the extensive collection of Inuit art at the Dennos Museum Centre at Northwestern Michigan College (NMC) in Traverse City, Michigan along with wall hangings from the Judith Varney Burch Collection of Arctic Inuit Art.

The Dennos Museum Centre’s collection of more than 1,000 works of art by some 80 Inuit artists is recognised as one of themost historically complete collections of contemporary Inuit art in the US.

Judith Varney Burch is an internationally recognised expert on Inuit art. She has curated many Inuit exhibitions at universities and museums around the globe; presently, she curates the Inuit art exhibitions at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, DC. In 1999 she gave the address on Inuit art during the Nunavut Celebration Symposium at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington and was the study guide for the Smithsonian's Arctic Cruise of 2000 and 2002.

As one of the last surviving hunting cultures native to North America, the Inuit are a vigorous, yet sensitive, people who inhabit the Nunavut territory of Arctic Canada.  They possess a strong and vibrant character that enables them to celebrate thejoys of life, even in the face of adversity.

For centuries, continually threatened by a harsh Arctic environment, these incredibly resourceful people, so close to the rhythms of nature, carved out a life dependent upon catching fish and hunting mammals. Adapting to seasonal cycles, the Inuit lived in snow houses, or igloos, during the long winter, fashioning skin tents from caribou hides for the short summer season.To most people this formidable environment would be inhospitable, yet to the Inuit, it is poignantly referred to as nunatsiaq – “the beautiful land” – and continues to be reflected in the artwork produced by contemporary Inuit artists.

It was James Houston, a noted Canadian artist, author and filmmaker, who first brought Inuit art to the attention of the world. He lived among the Inuit from 1948 to 1962, and collected smallInuit carvings that he sold in southern Canada to support the economic needs of the Inuit people.

In the 1950s, with the help of his friend and businessman Eugene Power, he established a non-profit gallery in Ann Arbor, Michigan called Eskimo Art Incorporated to import the work and mounted the first exhibitions of Inuit art in the US. Later Houston taught the Inuit to make unique stone cut and seal skin stencil prints.Today’s Western artists are increasingly concerned with trying to find meaning in life and their artwork is often a response to their daily existence.

Contemporary Inuit artists work from a different stimulus. In the cultural vacuum created by the replacement of traditional Inuit values by the intrusion of modern technology, Inuit artists at first produced art commercially for tourists and collectors. Gradually, however, they found that art could meettheir economic needs as well as provide a means of cultural, spiritual and ethnic self-affirmation that has become fundamental to the continued identity and survival of the Inuit peoples.

The Dennos Museum’s collection reveals “the evolution of a dynamic culture still in process. It is a reflection of life on the land: a record of daily events, a glimpse into their once practiced magico-religious spiritual belief system. It is a visual narrative which serves as a vehicle for keeping alive the old ways; the old life of skin tents and snow houses, the nomadic life when seasonal hunting dictated lifestyle and, in essence, survival. What was once known only through oral tradition is brought forth in their visual imagery with vitality and clarity of purpose. The artwork exhibited serves as artistic documentation, which preserves the past and ushers in the present.”

Irene Avalaaqiaq, Canadian, Baker Lake, b.ca.1940 Woman Transforming, nd 56"  x 38 1/2" inches. Collection of Judtuh Varney Burch

Judith Varney Burch’s collection captures the spirit of Baker Lake: “For generations the women of the North have added artistic elements to the creation of their clothing. The wall hangings of Baker Lake are indicative of this tradition. On these textiles are recoded the activities of camp life, symbolism of shaman rituals and the stories of the mythical heroes. The stitching serves as a signature of the different artists. Throughthe wall hangings we are able to see the essence of their beliefs and memories.”

These two important collections, Cultural Reflections and Culture on Cloth, offer visitors to the BNG an opportunity to study the remote Inuit culture through its artistic expressions.

Exhibition links:
Educational Materials
Dennos Museum Center
Judith Varney Burch

Leah Qumaluk, Povungnituk, b. 1934, "Seal Hunter Goes...", 1978
Stonecut, Edition 29/40.
Collection of the Dennos Museum Center

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Byllee Lang in Studio, Canada, ca. 1940, Canadian, 1908-1966, Silver gelatin print, Bermuda Archives: Byllee Lang Collection.

Byllee Lang: A Tribute
Lower Mezzanine

This exhibition provides an opportunity to tell the story of a heroic and inspirational artist.  Canadian-born sculptress Byllee Lang (1908-1966) was a committed artist who did not see colour or race as barriers, even though law and society saw otherwise. 

In the years she lived in Bermuda (1946-1966) —a sojourn cut short by her sudden death the day before her 58th birthday — Lang built a reputation for being a creative dynamo and a womanwho lived life to the fullest.

She was instrumental in inspiring emerging Bermudian artists of her day; she held Bermuda’s first mixed-race art classes in her studios. While blacks and whites attended segregated schools elsewhere in Bermuda, they sat side by side in her classes.  In addition to teaching art, she created window displays for A.S. Cooper’s, prize-winning floats for the Easter Parade, and lent hercostume-making and set design talents to theatrical productions. Andrew Trimingham, her friend and artistic executor, wrote that Lang “was the godmother of every artistic endeavour going.”

Her most important artistic achievement was the Anglican Cathedral reredos, the altar screen and statues of Christ and 14 saints that she was commissioned to create around 1958. She died with five statues uncompleted, but the nine smaller figures ofthe Virgin Mary and Saints Anne, Brendan, John, Luke, Paul, Andrew, Mark and Peter were completed along with the 10-foot, 1,000-ton figure of Christ.

This exhibition includes examples of her sculpture work, as well as archival photographs of her studio and her art completed in Bermuda and her native Canada.

As Bermuda still grapples with the legacy of racial inequality, it isas much for her artistic genius as it is for her humanity that Lang is being remembered and honoured with this exhibit.

Exhibition links:
Byllee Lang (1908-1966) - Documentary video
[requires QuickTime - click here to download]
Byllee Lang's Legacy - essay by Meredith Ebbin
Educational Materials
Bermuda Biographies

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African Influences & Affinities
Watlington Room

When researching the history of African art, what becomes increasingly remarkable, is that the art appears so contemporary and modern. In a series of Dan masks, for example, each unique shape of wood depicts individual figures that appear at once tribal and modern. How can such a form exist in the sensibilities of artists so far removed from modern culture?

African Affinities comparatively exhibits Bermudian contemporary art with works from the BNG’s acclaimed African Collection.  Artists’ testimonials will show how African art has directly influenced their work, while other comparisons reveal striking affinities, or parallels, between forms and subjects.

The exhibition will feature work by Bermudian artists Will Collieson, Graham Foster, Bill Ming, Lynn Morrell, and Kevin Morris, as well as Hale Woodruff, who once stated: “My early works were based on African forms and some of my later works, too. And I'm still working at this kind of approach now.” African Affinities allows for the BNG’s African and Permanent Collections to be explored in a unique way, while drawing from other private collections.

Identifying and understanding the invisible influences of an artist is a challenge that echoes Jung’s theory that ancient mythology informs our dreamscapes.  There may well be patterns and parallels, however purposeful or unintentional; the fun is in the looking and the posturing, which is our liberty as art goers.

Exhibition links:
Educational Materials

Zoomorphic Mask Bamana/Senufo Peoples, Ivory Coast Wood. 30.5x19.25x4 inches Collection of BNG Anonymous Gift	Kevin Morris, Bermudian, b.1974 Icon #2, 2007 Acrylic on canvas, 6x4 inches Collection of Kevin Morris

Bermuda Collection:
350 Years of Art in Bermuda
The Ondaatje Wing

Presented as an historical timeline, our permanent exhibition follows the artistic, historical and cultural development of Bermuda through its decorative and fine arts from 1624 to the present day. The Gallery’s Permanent Collection is complemented by significant private loans focusing on Bermuda’s early decorative arts of furniture and silverwork.

The Bermuda Collection is generously supported by Sir Christopher Ondaatje

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