Behind the gold veil: Rande Cook

add to outlook add to google calendar remind me

Monday, June 22nd, 2015
10:00 AM to 5:00 PM

Rande Cook (K’alapa), originating from Alert Bay, will be presenting a solo exhibition of new contemporary art works utilizing wood sculpture and metal, entrenched in Northwest Coast First Nations traditions.

Rande Cook and Dr. Andrea Walsh have been collaborating on a critical essay that will accompany the exhibition in print form, derived from regular studio visits and discussions taken place during the process of creating this exhibition.

This collaboration is generously funded by Canada Council for the Arts.

Artist Talk moderated by Dr. Andrea Walsh
25 June at 7 PM

_______________

Rande Cook

Chief Rande Cook (K’alapa) was born May 1977 in culture-rich Alert Bay, a small village on the northern tip of Vancouver Island. Surrounded by the beauty of land and art, Rande found the passion of creativity at an early age. With the strong teachings from his grandparents Gus and Florence Matilpi, Rande learned the strong values of life and culture. In 2008 Rande inherited his grandfather’s chieftainship and now carries the name Makwala, which means moon. Rande is very involved in his culture and has hosted a Potlatch and two feasts for his family and community. Rande is also known for his traditional dancing and singing in Potlatches.

Rande has worked with many great mentors such as John Livingston for his mastery in wood sculpting, Robert Davidson in metal work, Calvin Hunt for his amazing craftsmanship in wood and most recently Repousee and Chasing master Valentin Yotkov. Rande has been expanding his capacities with new creative ideas and in 2010 traveled to Italy to study under Yotkov. Most recently he travelled to New York to study in Yotkov’s studio to increase his craft in Repousse and Chasing. Rande pushes himself in all his mediums looking for perfection of each technique. Rande’s works can be seen in many galleries in the United States and Canada, and is now in collections around the world.

Rande now resides in Victoria where he continues to push himself in his creativity by finding many new inspirations in new mediums.

Andrea Walsh

Andrea Walsh is a visual anthropologist who specializes in twentieth-century and contemporary aboriginal art visual culture in Canada, as well as theoretical and methodological approaches to visual research.

Walsh is also an artist who works in photography and video in addition to producing social practice based works. In her development as an anthropologist, Walsh has been inspired by the long history of anthropological studies of art and material culture, and ethnographic film and photography, as well as more recent developments in the field of visual anthropology that have embraced the strengths of interdisciplinary visual culture studies.

Her research and teaching acknowledge and utilize her undergraduate training as a studio based artist (photo-lithography and intaglio printing) and graduate training in documentary and ethnographic film and video production. Walsh’s training as an anthropologist is integral to her approach as an artist. Historical and contemporary community-based cultural research and action is the foundation of her art practice in which she is interested in engaging memory, senses of space and place, history and identity.