Marianne Nicolson
Marianne Nicolson (‘Tayagila’ogwa; born 1969) is a Dzawada’enuxw visual artist whose work explores the margins at which public access to First Nations artifacts clashes with the preservation of indigenous cultural knowledge.
[1] She utilizes painting, photography, mixed-media, sculpture, and installation to create modern depictions of traditional Kwakwaka’wakw beliefs, and has exhibited in Canada and throughout the world since 1992.
[2] Marianne Nicolson was born in 1969, in Comox, British Columbia to a Kwakwaka'wakw First Nations mother of the Dzawada'enuxw descent, and a Scottish immigrant father from Stornoway.
[12] Nicolson's piece, a light box that casts shadows on the surrounding walls of a raven, owl and two girls — the artist's aunt and mother as young women, took up the entire gallery.
The gallery used to be a former Provincial courthouse, through this piece Nicolson gives hope to the survival of Pacific Northwest Coast First Nations cultures and communities, despite active efforts to suppress and eradicate them.
[15] This major installation consisted of a 6'x35' lit blue glass wall, which bears the carved image of a sinking killer whale being ridden by figures.
[4] This installation was commissioned by the Canadian Embassy in Amman, Jordan, in 2013 Foolmakers in the Setting Sun (Ni’nułamgila le’e Banistida`Tłisala), exhibited in 2014 at Gallery 2 in Grand Forks, British Columbia, depicts the dan`tsikw (powerboards) that serve as spiritual powers during the 'tukwid, a traditional Kwakwaka’wakw ritual.
Light is sent off onto the boards, simulating the sunset, producing shadows of the carved ghosts, which grow taller until they pass through an image of the Alberta Tar Sands on the wall at dusk.
Foolmakers in the Setting Sun addresses how global warming and environmental contamination as a result of the pipeline project would destroy the planet, through the Kwakwaka’wakw worldview Her art piece titled The Rivers Monument has been installed at the A-B Connector at Vancouver International Airport, since January 2015.
Marianne Nicolson has expressed optimism about the YVR for selecting her "very political" artwork for the connector, "[pushing] their own boundaries slightly" and raising awareness about indigenous peoples and their histories.
In her 2007 painting Tunics of the Changing Tide, exhibited at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery in 2017, Nicolson has illustrated two garments bearing the figures of a Thunderbird, a mink, a snake, and a tree.
Nicolson references the flag's original orientation (1895-1906); while the early version shows the sun atop the Union Jack and suggests a cooperative situation and mutually beneficial alliances between the crown and Indigenous nations, these emblems were reversed in 1906 and symbolically reveal a relationship of oppression, theft and genocide.
The images that are presented as the light moves up and down, mimicking the tidal flow of waters, show animals and symbols important to Nicolson's Kwakwaka’wakw heritage.
