Brian Jungen

Artist 

Brian Jungen joined Cape Farewell on the 2007 Art/Science Expedition. Taking almost three weeks the expedition crossed the north Atlantic to the extreme frontline of climate change, then sailed south to explore East Greenland’s Blosseville Coast.

Brian is a key figure in Vancouver's art community. In 2006, an exhibition of Jungen's work was held at Vancouver Art Gallery and in the UK, Jungen exhibited People's Flag at the Tate Modern. Jungen's practice re-crafts modern commodities into sculptural objects, entertaining a dialogue between his first-nation ancestry, the global economy and the object of art.

Brian's art draws upon the tradition of 'found art,' espoused by such twentieth-century artists as Andy Warhol and Marcel Duchamp. Instead of presenting objects 'as-is', however, he often reworks them without fully concealing their original meaning or purpose.

The Nike footwear that Brian had employed incorporates in their unmodified forms similar colours to traditional First Nations artwork and wood carvings: red and black. However, other projects, such as a series of wooden pallets, painstakingly crafted out of red cedar, a First Nations tent made out of '11 leather couches' and Brian's large 'whale-bone' sculptures made out of plastic chairs (some still with Canadian Tire price stickers on them) seek to defamiliarise even members of Western society that are unfamiliar with First Nation themes by placing familiar objects in unfamiliar positions or situations and vice versa.

Related Links