Jane Ash Poitras: Keeping The Circle Strong

Dr. Jane Ash Poitras [Mikisew Cree First Nation], CM RCA (Member of the Order of Canada [CM] and Royal Canadian Academy of Arts [RCA] is a Canadian First Nations artist who lives in Edmonton, Alberta. She has received many honors as an internationally acclaimed visual artist and lecturer who has influenced a successive generation of artists and students.

Poitras combines her many diverse interests in pursuit of her distinctive artistic vision including such topics as current politics, pharmacology, ethnobotany, linguistics, and literature. Edmonton Journal visual arts critic Janice Ryan writes about Poitras, “The work is engaging for its beauty alone, but up close is where the cerebral journey begins, unraveling fragments of information, both subtle and in-your-face pronouncements, to reveal the story this imaginative.” Poitras makes collaged, layered work, overpainted with thin washes, often with handwritten text, and incorporating found objects. She expresses a deep commitment to the politics and issues common to Indigenous peoples. Her work is about flipping and broadening perspectives, connecting different viewpoints and histories, and reconciling differences or rather, considering, opposing viewpoints tangentially.

Poitras was born in Fort Chipewyan in 1951 and was adopted by a German-Canadian widow after her mother died of tuberculosis. Her adoptive parent didn't understand that it might have been worthwhile for her new daughter to have an opportunity to identify with her native culture and Poitras “became part of the Canadian mainstream” as she says. By the time she was 30 she'd reconnected with her Indigenous ancestry, a seminal event which changed her perspective on how she defined herself in the world.

Poitras holds a Bachelor of Science in Microbiology and Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees from the University of Alberta, BFA in print and design at Yale University, and MFA at Columbia University in New York. She has received numerous awards in recognition of her achievements and contributions that include the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal and honorary doctorates from the University of Calgary and the University of Alberta. She is represented by Bearclaw Gallery in Edmonton, Canada House Gallery in Banff, Kinsman Robinson Galleries in Toronto, and Galerie d’Art Vincent in Ottawa.