Full Description
ONE OF QUILL & QUIRE'S NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2025
A singular collection of responses to the still life paintings of acclaimed artist David Garneau
Dark Chapters brings together 17 poets, fiction writers, curators, and critics to engage with the works of David Garneau, the Governor General's Award-winning Métis artist. Featuring paintings from Garneau's still life series "Dark Chapters" alongside poetry, fiction, critical analysis, and autotheory, the book includes contributions from Fred Wah, Paul Seesequasis, Jesse Wente, Lillian Allen, Billy-Ray Belcourt, Larissa Lai, Susan Musgrave, and more.
A nod to the Reports of Truth and Reconciliation Commission, in which Justice Murray Sinclair describes the residential school system as "one of the darkest, most troubling chapters in our nation's history," Garneau's still life paintings combine common objects (books, bones, teacups, mirrors) and less familiar ones (a Métis sash, a stone hammer, a braid of sweetgrass) to reflect the complexity of contemporary Indigenous experiences. Provocative titles like "Métis in the Academy" and "Smudge Before Reading" invite consideration of the mixed influences and loyalties faced by Indigenous students and scholars. Other paintings explore colonialism, vertical and lateral violence, Christian influence on traditional knowledge, and museum treatment of Indigenous belongings.
Rooted in Garneau's life-long engagement at the intersections of visual art and writing, Dark Chapters presents a multifaceted reflection on the work of an inimitable, unparalleled artist.
Includes contributions from Arin Fay, Billy-Ray Belcourt, Cecily Nicholson, David Howes, Dick Averns, Fred Wah, Jeff Derksen, Jesse Wente, John G. Hampton, Larissa Lai, Lillian Allen, Paul Seesequasis, Peter Morin, Rita Bouvier, Susan Musgrave, Tarene Thomas, and Trevor Herriot.
Contents
Foreword
Nic Wilson
Still Life
John G. Hampton
Stone and Rock: I Have Failed You
Peter Morin
Wander Carried
Cecily Nicholson
On Kinship
Paul Seesequasis
Learning from Indigenous Academic Solidarity
Jeff Derksen
Knock Knock
Lillian Allen
Unsettling the Colonial Gaze
Trevor Herriot
Smudge Before Reading and The Land Does Not Forget
Tarene Thomas
Confession (after David Garneau) by Rita Bouvier
Fuse and Formal and Informal Education
Jesse Wente
The Problem with Pleasure
Billy-Ray Belcourt
Métis Realism: On the Materiality of Smoke and Relationality of Rocks
David Howes
Allies (after Hsieh and Montano)
Larissa Lai
Ally Tear Reliquary
Arin Fay
Understanding Attempted Enlightening: Between Language as Power...and Light as Life
Dick Averns
Spine
Fred Wah
The Resting Heartbeat of a Wounded Bird
Susan Musgrave
Gallery
About the Artist
About the Curator
About the Editor
About the Contributors
List of Artworks
Index
