'Self Portrait, 2009' by Shane Wilson
musk oxen horn and bronze wolf skull sculpture
(36w x 59h x 28d cm - Yukon Arts Centre Gallery - Permanent Collection)
Lineage
A Gillian Sze poem, based on Self Portrait (2009) by Shane Wilson, reading by Cat Kidd
Lineage - by Gillian Sze read by Cat KiddThere are memories we keep in bones:
porous, of wilderness,
fused long since.
What begins as nightmare,
we wake into, learn to weather,
weld deeper into us
so we die with fewer bones
than we’re born with.
Some of us turn into birds
take wing with the benevolence
of a Chinook,
speak with the roundness of grapes.
Others fly out like a flock of gods,
discover genealogies more lupine, more bovine,
become grand blueprints replete with stars.
Black-tipped, cold curvatures,
raw bone, vestigial horns.
An inarticulate clash of anatomies:
part curse, part calamity,
the ferocity of incisors,
and always a soft ache
lodged in old bones.
'Self Portrait, 2009' is a sculpture carved in musk oxen horn and bronze on a jade base.
The piece is a carved, psychological portrait of the artist in musk ox horn, from birth (the left black tip), middle age (the centre between the two horns), maturity and death (postulated to be some way off just yet - represented by the right black tip).
It is also meant to be a symbol for what the artist leaves behind after this time on earth: the artist's bones (the bronze wolf skull) and the artists' work (the carved musk oxen skull). Since the two are separate forever after the act of creation, they are separated in this sculpture by clear plexiglass column. Wolves and Musk Oxen co-exist in Canada's far north and so go together to form this sculpture.
This carved musk ox horn and bronze wolf skull sculpture, 'Self Portrait', resides in the Yukon Arts Centre Permanent Collection in Whitehorse, Yukon.
'Self Portrait' is featured on the cover of Ice Floe II: International Poetry of the Far North, published in 2011 by the University of Alaska Press.
If you would like to see how Self Portrait was created, the work in progress notes, images and video are available here. If you would like to see coverage of the unveiling of Self Portrait as part of the Yukon Arts Centre Gallery Permanent Collection in Whitehorse, Yukon, click here. Use your browser's back button to return to this page.
