NATION
Atikamekw

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Born in La Tuque in 1958, Jacques Newashish spent his childhood in a tent on the Wemotaci territory. His father, a hunter and trapper, and his mother passed on to him the ancestral traditions of his people.

Jacques Newashish has been inspired by strong and charismatic historical and contemporary personalities. He began his artistic work by drawing the faces of great Indigenous leaders who have marked history and whose photographs he found. Amongst his art pieces, we also have installations that bring together natural resources like wood, root, feather, stone and painting and drawing. His work transcends folklore through contemporary techniques such as spray painting and dripping. In 1982, at the age of 24, he became the first artist of the Atikamekw Nation Council to illustrate the first educational books and cultural notebooks written in the Atikamekw language. Three years later, his first trip to France led him to tour Paris, Nantes, Larochelle and Toulouse to promote the culture of the First Nations of Quebec. As part of the commemoration of the 300th anniversary of the Great Treaty of Montreal, he was asked by the founder of Montreal First Peoples Festival to create a totem pole with several other First Nations artists. In 2002, he created a performance of intercultural meditation at Jardin Botanique in Montreal, as part of the summer solstice on June 21 and International Indigenous Day. He also directed two short films with Wapikoni mobile: Migration (2009) and Game Over (2010). Moreover, he is very involved in multiple projects whose purpose is to motivate creation for youth. He acted in a play called “Un vol au-dessus d’un nid de coucou” (2017) presented at Rideau Vert theatre in Montréal.