At the Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art until September 14

In a short introductory video playing in the gallery, Morgan Green talks about the different disciplines and materials she has explored in her young life. These include painting, drawing, sewing, wood carving, stone cutting, ceramics, fashion design, and jewellery making. And while her silver, gold, and copper pendants, rings, brooches, and neck ornaments are the main focus in her show, Ts’msyen Transforming, there are examples here too of her considerable facility in wood, fabric, ink, and graphite.

Outstanding among them is Amhalaayt (Raven Chief’s Headdress), an alder frontlet inlaid with abalone shell, executed in classical Tsimshian style. It’s a beguiling work, depicting Raven surmounted by three small human faces, carved and painted with considerable delicacy. Clearly, this artist has the chops to work in the style and materials of her paternal ancestors, and to recall their significant contributions to the ceremonial art of the Northwest Coast. But she also has the eye and the skills to incorporate European forms and techniques—a nod, perhaps, to her Scottish mother.

Green’s art and design education is impressive—and reflective again of her wide interests and her versatility. Growing up in Prince Rupert, she designed and made clothing for herself, then formally studied fashion design in Vancouver. She was also mentored by her father, Tsimshian master carver Henry Green, who taught her how to work with alder and cedar, and she studied engraving and Northwest Coast design principles with Haida artist Richard Adkins. She has taken moulding, casting, and gem-setting courses in California, and she has studied jewellery design in Vancouver with German-trained goldsmith Gerold Mueller. Green also cites her childhood and youth, living close to the natural world and fishing with her family on the Skeena River and the ocean, as a powerful inspiration for her art.

Given her history, it is not surprising that Green effectively combines indigenous and western approaches to form and technique. In many of her pendants and necklaces, for instance, she makes effective use of oxidized silver, playing its matte greys off passages of black and gold. One of the most accomplished pieces here is Laxgiik Wals Sqa’lui (Eagle at Ridley Island—Place Without Alder—Necklace), whose dangling eagle-claw forms in oxidized silver are complemented by long, slender dentalia shells.
Working with hollow-form jewellery-making techniques rather than repoussé (long associated with Bill Reid), Green constructs three-dimensional forms out of two-dimensional components. The result is a paradoxical sense of monumentality in her intimately scaled works. Many of the silver pieces depict the crest figures of the individuals for whom they were made, or allude to Tsimshian oral history. For instance, Goomsm Xsgyiik (Winter Eagle Necklace) recounts the story of a prince whose life is saved by the eagles he has fed. Sluuguu (Land Otter Man Pendant) is a delicate piece of erotica, executed in silver, gold, black diamonds, and fur, depicting a brazen, riverine creature who slips into bed with a woman each night.

One of Green’s recurring motifs is Mouse Woman, described in curator Kwiaahwah Jones’s exhibition statement as “a tiny but powerful oracle, who lifts the veil between worlds, and assists the hero of the story to succeed in his or her quest”. Green, too, seems adept at lifting the veil between worlds—past and present, aboriginal and European, monumental and intimate.