Additional Images

Provenance:

The Art Emporium, Vancouver, BC
Acquired from the above in 1975 by the present Private Collection, Vancouver, BC

Note:

Accompanied by a copy of the purchase invoice from the Art Emporium (client name redacted).

In Conversation, two figures—one crowned with a bird-like animal—are closely intertwined. The figures’ mouths are open in an apparent exchange of words, and one’s hand is resting upon the other. The posture of the figures in Conversation appears often in the artist’s work in images depicting the exchange of knowledge or spiritual power.

Although known throughout his career as a gifted colourist, Conversation dating circa 1975, is from a period that saw the beginning of Morrisseau’s use of particularly brilliant colour. Informed by traditions that acknowledge the capacity of material objects and representations to effect spiritual interactions, the artist has explained of his use of colour: “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.