Antoine Mountain

March 30 – June 30, 2024

“We call it Feeding the Fire,” Uncle quietly offers…

The Mountain Dene are naturally of a world apart, in its way separate from our usual worldly cares and woes.

To keep it alive is an education in itself. – Antoine Mountain

“Et’sehch’i; Traditional Dene Burial Practices” is comprised of twenty-one paintings that share depictions taken from stories, beliefs, and traditions as an epistemological tool of Dene resurgence.

Dene pedagogy is deeply rooted in land and community. Embodied learning and relational knowledge sharing are essential and powerful tools in this work that ensures the health and wellbeing of current and future generations. Antoine Mountain’s body of work is a teaching instrument, a source of knowledge, and a point of conversation with its true meaning flowing from its implications for community. The traditional Dene burial practices unfold in these paintings and their accompanying stories.

About the Artist:

“I am Dene, from Denendeh, the Northwest Territories, my generation, the last to be born right on the land. Unlike almost all of my peers, I was raised by my grandparents, so I had a rare insight into our history and culture. One lasting effect is an abiding connection to the land. My twelve years of residential schools gave me a firsthand experience of intergenerational residential school trauma.” – Antoine Mountain

Antoine Mountain is Dene, North American First Nations, originally from Radelie Koe/Fort Good Hope, of the Dene Nation, in northern Canada. His hometown is just a few miles from the Arctic Circle. In addition to his writing and scholarship, Mountain is a painter primarily working in acrylics across a number of styles with Impressionist influence. The colours of the North and deep-rooted spiritualism inform his approach to depicting landscape, portraits, and figurative scenes.

“Mother Nature herself is the single greatest artist of them all. I was born right out there on the land, [I] see and live this for myself, as was my generation of our Native Peoples. We retain an abiding love for this country. This is the root of all of my artwork.” – Antoine Mountain

Antoine Mountain has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Ontario College of Art and Design University, a Master of Environmental Studies from York University in Toronto and is completing his PhD in Indigenous Studies at Trent University. His artwork has been exhibited across the country and internationally.

RELATED EVENT:

Opening Reception: Saturday, March 23, 2 – 4 pm

For the special event, these works will be installed in the Main Gallery.
Et’sehch’i; Traditional Dene Burial Practices will remain on view in the upper ramp galleries from Saturday, March 30 to June 30, 2024