Featured Artist for October 2014: Aaron Paquette

The gorgeous art featured on the cover of the October 2014 edition of Alberta Native News, by Aaron Paquette, is entitled Speaking with Two Voices and is currently on exhibit at the Bearclaw Gallery in Edmonton.  If you like it on the cover, and how can you not, you will absolutely love it on display in the gallery.

Paquette is an artist with immense talent who is garnering international attention for his exquisite and vivid paintings, as well as his positive motivational messages and social conscience and his most recent successful efforts to encourage Aboriginal literacy with the publishing of a new book entitled Lightfinder.

Paquette, a descendant of the Cree and Cayuse, will be featured at the Bearclaw Gallery in Edmonton from October 18 – 29 with an exhibit of new works. The exhibit is called A Greater Purpose and the artist has written a poem to accompany the title piece.

A Greater Purpose
You move through life.
An experience here and there to brighten the sameness of the every day.
But there’s more to you. More to your work, your life, your smile.
There’s an insistent urgency that you ignore.
It’s too inconvenient, demands too much.
It’s your true self calling.
Asking you to rise. To breathe.
To live fully, to love fully.
To matter.
That is your Greater Purpose.

Paquette is a forty year old artist known for his bright colours, strong lines and for sharing new ways of looking at age-old experiences and beliefs. Based in Edmonton,  Aaron has been creating art for the past 20 years. He apprenticed and has become both a cathedral stained glass artist and a goldsmith, influences of which can be seen in the line and structure of his paintings – displayed in various galleries throughout the country.

Of his artwork, Paquette says, “I am an artist. In my paintings, I seek to nurture a relationship with the viewer. I try to use colours that are calming, but also fresh and exciting … In each painting I try to include a story that is meaningful to me and encourages discussion. I hope that my works can act as part of a catalyst for greater understanding … My work almost always features an aspect of nature and our relationship with the earth.”

Aaron is also an experienced facilitator, trainer and engaging public speaker. He has worked with the Royal Conservatory’s adjunct program -Learning Through the Art s- as both a Mentor Artist and as the First Nations Representative and Consultant in Alberta.  He has worked as a guest curator for The Art Gallery of Alberta, St. Albert’s Public Gallery: Profiles, and the McMullen Gallery at the University of Alberta Hospital. Aaron exhibits his works through Galleries across Canada, his works can be found in private and corporate collections throughout Canada and USA.

Don’t miss the opportunity to see this wonderful exhibition of new works by Aaron Paquette. The Bearclaw Gallery, located at 10403 124 Street in Edmonton is well-known and highly regarded as a fine Canadian First Nations art dealer and gallery. Over the last three decades, the Bearclaw Gallery has established solid relationships with First Nations artists from across Canada and has proudly promoted Canadian First Nations and Inuit art and artists to buyers both at home and internationally. For more information and to view the new works by Aaron Paquette electronically, visit www.bearclawgallery.com.