Glenda Goertzen
Special to the Herald
PRINCE ALBERT – Onlookers gasped when the veils covering downtown’s newest mural were pulled aside.
On Tuesday, one month after the installation of two murals in the 14th Street Gateway Mall Courtyard, Prince Albert artist Earl McKay unveiled his contribution to the collection. The previous works are by Colby Lavigne and Rebecca Perry.
Rhonda Trusty, executive director for the Prince Albert Downtown Business Improvement District (PADBID), launched the murals project with the idea adding interactive art and “a punch of colour and brightness” to the downtown area.
All three murals are designed to be interactive. People can become a part of each work by standing in front of it and interacting with the elements. With McKay’s piece, people might pose below the wings of an eagle, smoke a ceremonial pipe, or go through the motions of smudging with the smoke of burning sage and sweetgrass.
McKay expressed hope that people will admire the Indigenous themes in his work without stereotyping him.
“I want to be ‘an artist’, not ‘a native artist’.”
Earl McKay was born in Cumberland House, Sask., and has been drawing and painting since childhood. According to his autobiography on the Indigenous Arts Collective of Canada website, he used art to help him cope with the trauma of being a ’60’s scoop survivor.
He is known for his wildlife paintings on canvas and mammal skulls, including bison. His works have been exhibited around the world and have found their way into the private collections of David Suzuki, Lynn Redgrave, and Hank Williams, Jr.
“I don’t have a process,” he said when asked about his technique. “I just put it down and it comes out. Originally this was one of my paintings, but I kind of moved it around a little bit to go with the flow of the idea, of the concept that that needs to be here. I’ve got three different genres on here; one being traditional, one being surrealism and one being realism.”
He places a strong emphasis on colour. “I studied colour back in school when I took art. I studied colour, colour theory, colour management, how to use colour, what colours are doing with what colour.”
Kimberly McKay, Earl’s wife, assists him in his work, preparing surfaces and backgrounds. With the bison skull sculptures, that includes repairs and gluing.
“We work as a team most of the time,” she said.
McKay is currently working on a piece for the British Columbia Nurse’s Union. The subject is a little girl walking on teardrops. Inspired by the discovery of hundreds of suspected unmarked graves at a residential school site in Kamloops, it’s titled Never Forgotten. The piece, the new mural, and other works by McKay are posted on his Facebook page, @Skullzartworkz.
