Artist Talk: Brenda Draney and Janine Mileaf

In Drink from the river, her first solo exhibition in the United States, Brenda Draney (b. 1976, member of Sawridge First Nation, Treaty 8) draws from complex memories and an evolving sense of identity, painting narrative canvases marked by economical brushstrokes and expanses of white space. The cumulative portrait that emerges in Draney’s paintings references a collective self that encompasses not only her own experience but that of past generations and current community members. Recurring and recognizable motifs of specific figures, pieces of furniture, or architectural features, alongside more generalized joyful and traumatic encounters, leave Draney’s oeuvre open to association and to individual connection. Draney discusses her own associations with Arts Club Executive Director and Chief Curator Janine Mileaf.