Additional Images

Provenance:

Private collection, Montreal

Literature:

Allan J. Ryan, The Trickster Shift: Humour and Irony in Contemporary Native Art, UBC Press Vancouver/Toronto, 1999, page 19 and page 195 for The Virgin Bullet (fifth panel), reproduced in colour.

Note:

Referencing this work in a chapter entitled "Subverting the Symbols of Power and Control", Allan Ryan writes: "In the fifth and most disturbing panel, an appropriated image of the Virgin Mary - characteristically depicted as an idealized white woman with pale skin, deep blue eyes, and luscious red lips - is framed by a border of painted red crosses, four of which are overlaid with metal shell casings pointing downward directly above the Virgin's head. Like the title of the piece itself, it is a distressing, yet riveting, elision of imagery. Like a volley of gunfire or a hail of bullets frozen in mid-flight, the shells presage impending disaster. Across the bottom of the painting, two shield-like figures barely conceal the names of two such disasters inflicted on Native peoples, "The Trail of Tears" and "The Sand Creek Massacre." Both also memorialized by Edward Poitras in Small Matters. Echoing the Métis artist's comments on his own installation, Jane Ash Poitras says of The Virgin Bullet: "It's a small piece but it’s a powerful little piece."