Shawn Hunt, Odalisque, 2014, red cedar, yellow cedar, horsehair 50 x 41 x 21 in.| Photo courtesy of Macaulay & Co. Fine Ar.

The Richmond Art Gallery is hosting an art exhibition this month, featuring works tackling issues of cultural conflation and mixed identities. Many of the works by Vancouver-based artists Diyan Achjadi and Shawn Hunt have never been shown before on the West Coast.

“While very different in the way they look, their work shares features in terms of their respective histories,” says gallery curator Nan Capogna.

The histories explored by these artists are hotly contested ones, with the exhibition concentrating on the interplay that occurs when two cultures crash into each other. Diyan Achjadi specializes in printmaking and animation, recalling the experience of Dutch colonialism in Indonesia through cultural artifacts ranging from textile designs to medieval bestiaries. Meanwhile, Shawn Hunt replicates European art history using aboriginal forms, recalling the aggressive assimilation policies of the Canadian government and church.

“It will be interesting to see what happens when our two practices come together. I will be just as interested as anyone else to see what kind of conversations the two bodies of work will have,” says Hunt.

Cultural migrations

For both artists, ideas of cultural conflation and interplay resonate on a personal level.

“I grew up in a mixed-cultural context that was primarily Indonesian, with English-Canadian influences. I moved quite a bit because of my father’s work – we relocated every 2-3 years until I was 17 and I moved to New York to go to art school,” says Achjadi.

Achjadi now works mainly in drawing and printmaking, favouring labor-intensive processes to make art that merges the past with the present. She accomplishes this by employing a combination of traditional and contemporary printmaking techniques coupled with themes drawn from both sides of the Pacific.

“I like how fictional [situations] can draw attention to real situations, offer critical ways of thinking about them, and pose questions about the world,” Achjadi says.

Much of her work deals with the contradictions inherent in coming from a mixed background. Her mother, born in Ottawa, has been an Indonesian citizen for more than three decades and is an expert in traditional Indonesian textiles. This gives Achjadi a direct link to textile traditions such as batik, from which she draws a great deal of influence while layering it with her own modern aesthetic.

“At the heart of much of my work is an attempt to better understand Indonesia and my relationship to it. The longer I am away from Indonesia, the more compelled I seem to be to delve deeper into its history and its context. While I start from this very specific place, I hope to make work that can address larger questions that relate to more than just my own history,” Achjadi says.

Bridging the gap

Shawn Hunt’s work asks big questions about long history. Like Achjadi, he works in a variety of crafts, from jewellery to painting to woodcarving.

“It keeps me fresh,” says Hunt, “and the work I do in one medium often informs the others. It’s interesting for me to try and do something new that has never been done before. It’s also interesting to try and deal with these mediums’ sometimes problematic histories as they relate to my world today. It makes for a challenge either way.”

The exhibition will be showing a variety of Hunt’s sculptures, pieces that appropriate iconic imagery from European art history and reintegrate them into a First Nations context.

“He is turning the tables and creating what looks like European artwork, but that is definitely First Nations,” Capogna says.

Much of this melding of worlds taking place in Hunt’s art reflects his mixed-race background as the son of a Heiltsuk father and Scottish Canadian mother. The oppositions and complementarities between Hunt’s two ancestries and their contentious histories are a central component of his work.

“When I got older, I realized that what I thought was a disadvantage was in fact an advantage,” says Hunt. “It put me in the powerful position of being a bridge between these two cultures.”

Points of connection

Capogna believes the exhibit will be relevant to people from a number of different backgrounds, especially mixed-raced.

“There are many people who have mixed backgrounds. So I think people will relate to that very easily, what it’s like to have parents from two different cultures and how that influences you.”

For more information, please visit www.richmondartgallery.org.