Joane Cardinal-Schubert - Oils

"Ghost Dance Shirt-Dream" is part of a series Joane Cardinal-Schubert produced that evolved from an experience at a dreambed (vision quest site) near Head-Smashed-In-Buffalo Jump in 1987.  The Ghost Dance works are more personal works than the earlier and more political War Shirt Series of the late 1980's-early 1990s, which had evolved from her work with petroglyphs found at Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park.  The Ghost Dance paintings involve greater layering and overlapping of various accoutrements, such as bone breastplates, beads, glass, and leather thongs, all of which are significant in Joane's personal iconography.  "Ghost Dance Shirt-Dream" is autobiographical in a more direct sense since the shadowy figure behind the stretched hide is Joane herself.  Reference to her earlier work with the ancient language of the petroglyphs, the depiction of strings of trade beads and the stretched hide itself, right up to the inclusion of a contemporary fentex covered clothes hangers, for Joane associated with fast cash for bingo halls nights, offered a diary or retrospective of her work as an artist with its many influences, concerns, and directions as well as a visual dialogue on First Nations's life.  Metaphorically Joane is stretched across the surface of the canvas, fully exposed in an expression of self-examination and truth.