* Featured image: Artist Dazaunggee and Mary Louise Noce, Dean of Georgian College Orillia campus.
The Seven Grandfather Teachings
Teaching Four: Love
Saturday, April 22, 10:30 to 12:30 pm
Temporary Gallery Location: Aurora Town Hall, Second Floor
Please join us for an engaging opportunity to learn about the Seven Grandfather Teachings through the powerful lens of art. This event is available for all ages and offered free of charge.
No RSVP required – just drop in. Light refreshments provided.
Started by Indigenous artist and gallery alumni Dazaunggee (Paul Shilling), this project invited four artists of diverse cultural backgrounds to creatively interpret each of the learnings of the Seven Grandfather Teachings: Bravery, Honesty, Humility, Love, Truth, Respect, and Wisdom. Through a seven-part event series across the region, this project presents each of the artists’ creations to share the learnings of the Seven Grandfather Teachings; one learning at a time.
The Aurora Cultural Centre is honored to have been selected to host one of the seven events. In our event led by Dazaunggee (Paul Shilling), the artists will be displaying and discussing their interpretation of the teaching, Love.
The most important thing for anyone is to know yourself… We all come into this world knowing we are beautiful. We have layers like blankets placed on top of us as we grow up, go to school, get a job, have children, grow old. We must remove those layers to see our true selves, and realize we are all beautiful human beings.
– Dazaunggee
Participating artists include Dazaunggee, Julie Tian, Xavier Fernandes, and Ted Fullerton. Light refreshments provided by the Orillia & District Arts Council. This project is funded by the Canadian Council for the Arts.
We call upon the Canada Council for the Arts to establish, as a funding priority, a strategy for Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists to undertake collaborative projects and produce works that contribute to the reconciliation process.
Temporary Gallery Entrance
Please note that this event is in our temporary gallery at Aurora Town Hall. Entrance is permitted through the Upper/North Entrance only.
Please see the map to the left for reference.
About the Artists
Dazaunggee (Paul Shilling) is the youngest brother of renowned Indigenous artist, Arthur Shilling. Following his oldest brother around, Dazaunggee (Sky Buffalo) learned to put his thoughts on canvas and in poetry and has become a renowned artist in his own right. He has taken up the elder’s task of bringing spirit and culture to the forefront, emphasizing traditional arts, crafts, and philosophy as healing, and learning tools. Having gone through much of the “system” from an early age, Dazaunggee has dedicated himself to learning and transferring traditional knowledge to the youth of his band and to others willing to listen. He is the lead artist in this proposed project.
Julie Chǔ Níng Tián is a self-taught Chinese Canadian artist. She was born in Northeastern China and immigrated to Toronto with her family at age seven. Julie uses art as a way of exploring her queer and Asian diasporic identity, and to share her imagery with local communities in Toronto. She works mainly with graphite, pen and ink, mixed paint, digital illustration, and embroidery. She speaks English, Mandarin, and French and has done workshops with Riverdale Hub and Asian Community AIDS Services focusing on self-reflection and gratitude through artistic expression. She is on the board of an artist co-operative based in Chinatown called Tea Base.
Xavier Fernandes is a Canadian artist based in Orillia, Ontario who has been woodworking and woodturning since 2018, producing over 550 pieces in this short time. He has been creating works of art for over 30 years, using various paints, drawing tools, digital images, graphic design, and music videos. Also working in 3D, he has done body paint, clay, stone, metal, and wood, among other media. He was involved in three Somniatis Wearable Art Shows in Orillia, and the Call 83 Truth and Reconciliation art shows, that are on display at St. Paul’s Centre in Orillia. His work can be found at Peter Street Fine Art Gallery and Studio in Orillia’s Arts District.
Ted Fullerton‘s body of work possesses undercurrents of human emotion and mystery. Many of his explorations have dealt with themes and myths revealing his concern with spiritual and magical worlds. For Fullerton “mythic symbols are entry points to the unconscious.” Through these devices he investigates the duality of human nature, the tension between the rational and the illogical, the physical and the spiritual, the intellectual and the intuitive. Whether he is working in oil, printmaking, sculpture, or mixed media drawing, in intimate or monumental scale, Fullerton’s creative process is spontaneous and gestural with sensuous and bold texture, line and movement. – Mary Reid, Director/Curator, Woodstock Gallery, Ontario
