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Renowned artist Sonny Assu returns home

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Sonny Assu

The Campbell River Art Gallery will present the solo exhibition of artist Sonny Assu from June 16 to July 21.

Everyone is welcome to celebrate the exhibition on Friday June 17 at 7 p.m. at an opening reception. Assu will present an artist talk at 6 p.m., prior to the reception.

Home Coming is a survey-style exhibition featuring specific artworks that pertain to Assu’s familial lineage. Assu is Ligwilda’xw (We Wai Kai) of the Kwakwaka’wakw nations and currently works and lives in B.C.

The exhibition features sculptures, paintings, and digital interventions to compose an exploration of the artist’s connection to the Northwest Coast and his own familial history.

Through museum interventions, large-scale installations, sculpture, photography, printmaking and paintings, Assu merges the aesthetics of Indigenous iconography with a pop art sensibility in an effort to address contemporary, political and ideological issues.

His work often focuses on Indigenous issues and rights, and the ways in which the past has come to inform contemporary ideas and identities.

Assu infuses his work with wry humour, to open the dialogue towards the use of consumerism, branding and technology as totemic representation.

Within this, his work deals with the loss of language and cultural resources, and the effects of colonization upon the Indigenous people of North America.

Artworks on view in this exhibition are on loan from the Vancouver Art Gallery, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Equinox Gallery and the collection of the artist.

In addition to the exhibition, Assu will be leading a youth art-making workshop on Sunday June 19. The workshop will give local youth the chance to learn from and work with the artist.