David Garneau
Cowboys, Indians, (Metis?)
March 12–April 10, 2004

The centre-piece of David Garneau’s exhibition is a 32-panel series of paintings in the form of a comic book. Combining text and images from pulp and western novels, the Riel rebellion, cigarette ads, Norman Rockwell, iconic Canadian artworks and elements of the artist’s personal history, the paintings weave multiple (and contradictory) strands of colonial history into an alternative narrative of “How the West Was Won”. By depicting how this story has been told in the popular images of the past particularly how white men have constructed representations of their interactions with Indigenous folk, these narratives are revealed to be partial representations rather than commonly-held ideas of “history” or “truth”. Of particular interest to Garneau is how Metis identity is negotiated between the identities/histories of Europeans and Indigenous people.