By Clint Buehler
Linus Woods
Linus Woods’s art is inspired by his roots, his landscape and his lifetime spiritual journey.
His artistic style is so unfailingly distinctive and consistent that it is immediately identifiable.
His work ethic and steady productivity have made him a popular, much-in-demand artist, so successful that at a recent solo exhibition at the Bearclaw Gallery in Edmonton he ended up creating new work in the confines of the gallery during the exhibition to meet the demand for his work.
Linus is a Dakota/Ojibwa from the Long Plain First Nation community in Manitoba.
He is primarily self-taught, but also has studied art at Manitoba’s Brandon University.
Woods’s paintings garnered a good deal of attention in his youth; he consistently won awards in art competitions and his first-place win at the Peace Hills Trust Native Art Show caught the eye of acclaimed First Nations artist Jane Ash Poitras.
Poitras invited Woods to stay in her Edmonton studio, where he apprenticed for two years. He studied art at Brandon University and has created his own unique painting style, which has led to exhibitions across Canada as well as New York and a sold-out show in Los Angeles., his work was selling so fast that he began making more art within the confines of the gallery to meet the demand.
Curator Leanne L’Hirondelle of Rabbits on the Rez at the Indian and Inuit Art Gallery in Hull, Quebec wrote: “The work of Linus Woods is profoundly influenced by his surroundings on the Long Plains Reserve, the oral traditions – both old and new, humor and his love of the painted surface. At first glance what one sees is the rich, layered surface of the works themselves, but underlying this quality is the depth of the stories, dreams and the influence of the landscape…”
He has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibits at private and public galleries In Canada and the United States.
“ I was born June 3rd, 1967 and raised by my mother, Carol Merrick and father, Ron Woods at Long Plain Reserve in Manitoba. I learned Saulteaux and I am part of the Thunderbird Clan. My uncle, Ross Woods, an artist at Long Plain, lived next door. I used to steal paint off him. One time, I went to my uncle’s house and painted his cowboy boots purple. My uncle chased me home. By grade two I was dancing pow-wow at Long Plain, as a fancy feather dancer. Pow -wows, at that time, were held twice a year — on Remembrance Day and the first weekend in August. Ron bought my regalia from Rodney High Eagle. One year, I took first prize and bought a dirt bike with the prize money”
“After that I became an artist,” Woods chuckles. “I just kept on painting what I wanted to paint. I kept true to myself.”
Woods’s paintings garnered a good deal of attention in his youth; he consistently won awards in art competitions and his first-place win at the Peace Hills Trust Native Art Show caught the eye of acclaimed First Nations artist Jane Ash Poitras.
Poitras invited Woods to stay in her Edmonton studio, where he apprenticed for two years. He studied art at Brandon University and has created his own unique painting style, which has led to exhibitions across Canada as well as New York and a sold-out show in Los Angeles.
Continually inspired by the stories and legends of his ancestors on the prairies, Linus translates and expresses that inspiration through contemporary artistic expression, with mixed media, mainly oils and acrylics in layered compositions, Linus’s works evoke memories of the past yet reflect current political and cultural Aboriginals issues.
Linus is a Dakota/Ojibwa from the Long Plain First Nation community in Manitoba.
He is primarily self-taught, but also has studied art at Manitoba’s Brandon University.
His exhibition, “Circles Back for Rabbit Track Soup,” at Bearclaw Gallery in March, showcased Woods’s new mixed-media (acrylic, oil, pastel, pencil) works on canvas and paper. Uplifting in its celebration of colour, his art is also joyous in content. He captures the beauty of the landscape surrounding his home on Long Plain Reserve in Manitoba. From atop a big hill, the Assiniboine River curves, and eagles, coyotes and rabbits are regular visitors. He honours Native life in Long Plain with images of shamans, traditional dress and horses, often personalizing the backs of his paintings with stories and witty reflections.
“I think viewers will take away a new awareness about First Nations culture,” says Bearclaw Gallery owner Jackie Bugera. “The fantasy or the science fiction aspect of tradition exists within the culture.”
Some of his paintings, such as the series depicting tales of UFO sightings, come with an unexpected and delightful twist. Woods has collected 30 stories of UFO sightings that date back to his elders in the “teepee days,” including two of his own — one while visiting Lukachuka in Apache County, in Arizona, and one at home. In Been Here Before Us, a shaman wearing deer horns and a mythical “little man” (little people who live in the bushes) are seen gazing up at a UFO.
“I am trying to create a feeling of happiness. There are no statements … nothing political in my work. I try to make things beautiful,” Woods said.
“Back in the day when the Indians said they were ‘rich’ it meant they had a beautiful family, beautiful things to pray with and beautiful feathers.”
His late Uncle Manus Merrick was the Long Plain Reserve cowboy hero, “a real maverick,” Woods says. Many of his horsemen images pay tribute to his uncle and a lifestyle largely replaced now with cars and SUVs.
