Drawing

These 62 small works (3223/1-62) comprise a collection of drawings in pencil, ink, pencil crayon, and felt pen made by the artist between the years 1968 and 2015. During that period the artist has identified himself by the following names: Ron Hamilton; Hupquatchew; Ki-ke-in; Kwayatsapalth; Chuuchkamalthnii; and Haa’yuups. The drawings are, for the most part, applied to the backs of bookmarks acquired from a range of bookshops; some are applied to other pieces of paper or cutouts from his earlier silkscreen prints. Many of the images represent killer whales, often in conjunction with accoutrements and symbols of Nuu-chah-nulth whaling. The juxtaposition of bookmark and representation of Nuu-chah-nulth himwits’a, or narrative, is a deliberate and meaningful placement of two distinct knowledge systems in relationship with one another. Ephemeral drawings like these were not created for the market; the artist has long made them for himself and sometimes as gifts for relatives and friends; they are a way of sharing his knowledge and experience about Nuu-chah-nulth ways of knowing, thinking about, and being in this world; they are expressive of what he calls kiitskiitsa: marks made with intention.

A drawing on part of a ticket from a university convocation ceremony. On the front-side, a decorated whale, hand-drawn in black and blue ink, is vertically positioned with its head at the bottom of the ticket and its tail at the top. The mouth of the whale is beak-like. Air, drawn as blue dashes, exits from a blowhole at the back of the head. A harpoon point on a frayed rope, drawn in orange, is in the whale's mouth. On the reverse-side, part of a fish, its wake and text is machine-printed in light blue-grey ink.