Maureen Enns Biography

The experience of the wilderness has always been fundamental to the work of this Alberta artist. The combination of adventure in remote parts of the world with artistic research provides us with enduring works of art that connect to our deep-felt concerns about wildlife and their environment.

For the last several years Maureen Enns has studied bears, along with her partner Charlie Russell, both in the Canadian Rockies and more recently in the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia. The goal is to discover the true nature of the bears and how we can “live with them as close neighbors without conflict”.[1]  Her current work brings us the world of Chico and Biscuit; two of three cubs Charlie and Maureen reintroduced into the area a number of years ago.  In addition to her mixed media works on paper, her cast stone tablets introduce other ‘wild’ bears of Kamchatka and many members of the natural world in this beautiful, fascinating region of Far-Eastern Russia.

Stylistically she often combines abstract compositions with the literal images of bears, in her earlier work it was camels or horses.  She states that, “realism becomes the bridge to enter the meaning of the work”. [2]  Her mixed media pieces challenge established notions of what a bear reacts to or perceives.  We are asked to suspend our preconceptions, in order to learn about bears, our culture and ourselves.

Maureen is the first Canadian artist to have a solo exhibit in the Moscow Contemporary Art Centre; she has also shown in locations in Slovenia, France and Australia. Exhibitions of her work have regularly been launched across Canada.

Public Collections:
Alberta Foundation for the Arts
Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies
Memorial University of Newfoundland
City of Calgary, Civic Collection
Alberta Children’s Hospital
Alberta Government and Inter-Governmental Affairs, Ottawa
Department of External Affairs, Ottawa, Federal Government

Corporate Collections:
Waterton Lakes Lodge, Waterton Lakes National Park
Suncor Energy Inc.
SMED
Creative Travel Adventures Ltd.
Toronto Sun
Esso Resources, Canada Ltd.
Bank of America
Western Co-op Fertilizers, Calgary
The Court House, Edmonton
Shell Canada Limited
Toronto Dominion Bank
Daon Development Corporation
Contemporary Art Collections, Vancouver
Woodwards Stores
Guarantee Trust Collection
Gulf Canada Resources Ltd.
Trimac Ltd.
Calgary Petroleum Club
Handfield Exploration, Calgary
Thorne Riddell & Co., Vancouver
Phillips, Hagert, North Vancouver
Nova Corporation of Alberta
Swiss Bank Corporation, Vancouver
PanCanadian
Stanley Carscallen Corp., Calgary
Aldon Minerals Ltd., Calgary
Regatta Ford Ltd., Calgary
TransCanada Pipeline Ltd.
L’image Design Ltd., Toronto
Mackimmie-Mathews, Calgary
Abbott Moving and Transport, Montreal
Pre-Cambrian Resources Ltd., Calgary

Selected Solo Exhibitions:

2002, Celebrating "Grizzly Heart", Willock and Sax Gallery, Waterton Lakes National Park

2001, Tracking Bear, Willock and Sax Gallery, Waterton Lakes National Park

2000, Through The Eyes of the Bear, Art Gallery of Calgary.

1999, Another Dimension, Masters Gallery, Calgary

1998, Kamchatka, Masters Gallery, Calgary

1997, The Bear’s Point of View, Masters Gallery, Calgary

1997, The Bear Who Looked for Beauty, Cultural Centre, Petropavlovsk, Russia.

1995, The Kamchatka Series, Masters Gallery, Calgary.

1993, Grizzly Kingdom: An Artist’s Encounter, Triangle Gallery of Visual Art, Calgary.

1990, Game’s End An African Encounter, Masters Gallery, Calgary.

1988-1989, Back of Beyond, Touring Exhibition, Circulated by the Nickle Arts Museum, University of Calgary. In Australia toured by the Ipswich Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia to: Riverside Centre, Brisbane; Ipswich City Council Art Gallery, Ipswich; Araluen Centre for Arts and Entertainment, Alice Springs; Holdsworth Fine Art Galleries, Woollahara.  In Canada toured to: Nickle Arts Museum, Calgary; Leo Kamen Gallery, Toronto.

1987, New Work. Leo Kamen Gallery, Toronto.

1985, New Work, Virginia Christopher Gallery, Calgary.

1985, Selected New Work, Equinox Gallery, Vancouver, B.C.

1984, Beauty Pageant, Peter Whyte Gallery, Banff.

1984-85, Beauty Pageant, Canadian Museum Tour, organized and circulated by the Peter Whyte Gallery, Banff.  Travelled to: Simon Fraser University Art Gallery, Burnaby; Ring House Gallery, University of Alberta;

Memorial University Art Gallery, St. John’s; Mount St. Vincent University Art Gallery, Halifax; Lynwood arts Centre, Simcoe; PetroCanada Gallery, Calgary; Maltwood Art Gallery, University of Victoria.

1983, New Work, Hett Gallery, Edmonton.

1981, Skyscapes, Gallery Moos, Calgary.

1979, Introducing, Elizabeth Nichols Equinox Gallery, Vancouver.

1971, Space Plays a Game, Mary Frazee Gallery, Vancouver.

Art Related Grants:

1997, 1995, 1993, 1991, 1989, 1987, 1986, 1985, 1984, Alberta Foundation for the Arts.

1992-1993, Calgary Region Arts Foundation.

1989, 1987, 1985, 1978/79, The Canada Council for the Arts.

Fellowships:
1995, Artist in Residence, Australian National University, Canberra School of Art.

Published Books and Catalogues:

Russell, Charlie and Maureen Enns, Grizzly Seasons. Toronto: Random House of Canada, 2003.

________. Grizzly Heart.  Toronto: Random House of Canada, 2002.

Sniatycka, Ewa, Dennis Slater and Maureen Enns.  Through The Eyes of The Bear.  Calgary, AB.: Art Gallery of Calgary, 2000.

Enns, Maureen and Debbie Thomas. Grizzly Kingdom: An Artist’s Encounter. Calgary, AB.: Detsellig Publishing, 1995.

McAlear, Donna.  Maureen Enns: Back of Beyond.  Calgary, AB.: The Nickle Arts Museum, 1988.  For an exhibition travelled in Australia and Canada 1988/89.

Brown, Elizabeth.  Realities Abstracted.  Banff, AB.: Peter Whyte Gallery, 1983.

Sturdy, Ken.  1980 Staff Exhibition, Alberta College of Art.  Calgary, AB.: Alberta College of Art S.A.I.T., 1980.  

Enns, Evans & Ulrich.  For an exhibition travelled in Banff, Lethbridge, Spokane, and Calgary.  1977-1978.  

Research

"With the always sensible and patient help of Chico, Biscuit, and Rosie, Maureen and I had proven that the problems between people and bears are not rooted inside bears.  If we choose to make ourselves better neighbours, wild bears can be counted on to behave within the ancient code of their wild culture" (Grizzly Heart, p.352).

Grizzly Heart is the remarkable account of how Russell and Enns and defied the preconceptions of wildlife officials and the general public by living unthreatened-and respected-among the grizzlies of Kamchatka. At the core is the story of the couple's adoption of three bear cubs left orphaned when their mother was killed by a hunter, and how they've helped teach these cubs to survive in the wild. The result is a book that proves tender, funny, thrilling, passionate and dramatic. Along the way Russell and Enns must battle fierce Siberian weather-and the even more unpredictable Russian bureaucracy.

Through a combination of careful study and personal dedication, Russell and Enns are forcing people to reconsider the age-old image of the grizzly bear as a ferocious man-eater and perpetual threat. Their project demonstrates that is is possible to forge a respectful relationship with these majestic giants, and provides compelling reasons for altering our ideas about bears (Grizzly Heart, bookcover)

Bears and People Can Share the Same Land

Kamchatka, The Grizzlies of the Russian Far East

A Research Project of Charles Russell and Maureen Enns

Taken from an article written by Charlie Russell and Maureen Enns

For the thousand or more years that there has been written history about such things, one of human kind’s greatest challenges seems to be the challenge of bridging the gulf that divides humans and animals. With man spreading out over so much of the planet it has never been as critical as it is now to learn if it is possible to live more closely and share the land with wild animals. With beasts as powerful and courageous as a grizzly this is difficult because we have continually been conditioned to fear one another.  Charlie and Maureen are the first people in the world to deliberately set up a study to explore if it is possible to live side by side with these animals indefinitely.

Many of the ideas people have about grizzly bears and the approach to managing them are based on the idea that if bears do not fear people they are automatically dangerous. As a result this species continues to be eliminated, even in national parks. One question Maureen and Charlie wanted to answer was why the most dangerous bears in the world were in the very places that they would hopefully be the safest, such as our most heavily used national parks.  Their study is about testing theories that might allow for people to share habitat with this animal, not only in parks but on private, federal and crowned lands, in ways that are safe and sustainable and offer exciting opportunities for enjoyment of these large predators. One of the things they wanted to understand was whether bears became dangerous and caused injury because of the various forms of negative conditioning devised to keep them separate from people.

Naturalists, Charlie Russell and Maureen Enns are the creators of this project and have been actively working on the study for the last 5 years. They both have extensive experience working with grizzly bears in Canada, one of the places where they hope their findings will eventually be put to use. Charlie raised beef cattle on the Russell ranch bordering Waterton Park for 18 years and there he encouraged grizzlies to feel safe on his land and also observed how they used that land with the cattle.  They rarely, if ever, killed any livestock.

The study area for their coexistence project is situated at Kambalnoye Lake at the southern tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Russian Far East. This is one of the last great wilderness areas left in the world and has an extremely dense population of brown bear.  These bear are the same species as the Rocky Mountain grizzlies and except for their being twice the size, look almost identical.  The area also provided an ideal environment for this study because the bears have little or no contact with human beings other than those studying them.

In 1997, Charlie and Maureen raised 3-orphaned grizzly cubs (Chico, Biscuit and Rosie) and reintroduced them to the wild. They have returned each summer since then to continue their relationships with these cubs who have become the central participants to their study of human coexistence with bears.

Their program not only develops techniques to reintroduce orphaned grizzly cubs successfully to their natural habitat but they are also proving that the relationships, which they have developed over the past 5 years with their study bears, can be sustained indefinitely.

Over the years in Kamchatka, Maureen has developed an exhibition of her art as a way to communicate to the world her understanding of bears. This work has been shown in Calgary, Alberta, Paris, France and significantly, she became the first Canadian artist to open a show in Moscow in September 2000. The obvious thing about this exhibition is how it is fueled by her intimate experiences with the bears. She has explored the grizzly as a sensitive, intelligent, even cultured, being, capable of emotional complexity and great feats of memory–even an aesthetic appreciation of landscape. 

Charlie and Maureen are demonstrating that they can live in harmony with grizzly/brown bears by developing simple protocol.  Instead of being unpredictable, the bears they work with, under ideal conditions, have turned out to be utterly reliable. They want their finding to help others learn to share land and allow front country, large ranches and other lightly used public lands to be increasingly important to grizzlies.

This research is a valuable resource and the methodologies and techniques can be applied to other situations. Their findings are beginning to prove conclusively that the natural tendencies of bears will allow for the coexistence of humans and bears in the same habitat, provided that humans can understand the needs and vulnerabilities of bears and make the appropriate adjustments.

They have developed techniques that could be practiced by anyone with an interest in sharing the same land with bears.  Such techniques include:

·        Using electric fencing to control the movement of bears (keeping bears out of camping areas, cars, outdoor toilets etc.)

·        Talking to bears to diminish the bear’s anxiety, during surprise encounters

·        Carrying pepper spray in bear country (they endorse Counter Assault and recommend carrying in a hip holster)

·        Understanding the memory, intelligence, instincts, and vulnerabilities of bears

They will continue to demonstrate that what they have done over the past five years is sustainable and will push on with the their research in Kamchatka over 3 more years, when they hope Chico and Biscuit will have cubs of their own. 

This article was created from a live input from Kamchatka in June 2001.