Additional Images

Provenance:

Gallery One, Toronto, ON
Private Collection, Toronto, ON

Note:

Norval Morrisseau’s paintings often contain images depicting the transfer of supernatural power. The spiritual nature of his figures’ interactions is signaled visually in Spiritual Communication through the central figure’s ritual attire, the irregular form of the beings’ bodies, and in the overlapping integrated lines which define them–a convention present in imagery found in the scrolls of the Midewiwin, or Ojibwe Grand Medicine society.

Among the historical Anishinaabeg, it was thought that spirits could intercede in aspects of everyday life. Malevolent, benign, or protective, they were sought out through altered states, fasting, or in a dream quest. Their beneficence could be encouraged through offerings which might have included song, the gifting of provisions, or even the ritual use of special pigments or colours. Speaking of the spiritual significance of colour in his work, Morrisseau said:

We can learn how to heal people with colour…My art reminds a lot of people of what they are…Many times people tell me that I’ve cured them of something, whatever’s ailing them…It was the colour of the painting that did that.[1]

[1] Norval Morrisseau, Travels to the House of Invention (Toronto: Key Porter Books, 1997), 16-17.