FROM THUNDER BAY ART GALLERY’S COLLECTION

Artist: John Hartman

Title: Shaganash Bearing Gifts Date: 1987

Medium: Ink on paper

Dimensions: 28.3 × 38 cm (11 1/8 × 14 15/16 in) Collection of the Thunder Bay Art Gallery, gift of the artist (2000)

John Hartman is known for his paintings, drawings, and prints of the landscape. “Shaganash” is an Ojibway word used to refer to English-speaking white people. In this ink sketch, a group of three figures with outstretched arms stand in relation to objects and symbols with colonial histories such as a cross, a dollar sign, and a bottle. While the artist offers a descriptive title and place name in sparing text, the human and animal figures are ragged edged outlines, and the narrative is unclear. Places, like people, can be full of intricacies and hard to read.

John Hartman was born in 1950 in Midland, Ontario. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from McMaster University in 1973 and taught painting as a parttime faculty member for Georgian College in Barrie, Ontario from 1986 to 1996.

While Georgian Bay was home, he lived and worked in Collins, a small, isolated community on the railway north of Thunder Bay from 1976 to 1981, and in Heron Bay, another small, northern shore community, east of Thunder Bay. While his wife taught for the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, Hartman painted and sketched. Several years later, Hartman drew on his memories of his experiences in Collins to create a dynamic body of work, including this drawing, which he donated to the Thunder Bay Art Gallery.