Alumnus Sonny Assu Releases Retrospective with Heritage House Publishing

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By Erin Kirsh

Posted on July 26, 2018 | Updated August 06, 2019, 9:07am

A myriad of Indigenous artists discuss the art of Sonny Assu in this new retrospective, Sonny Assu: A Selective History.

The profound, playful, and powerful art of interdisciplinary artist and alumnus Sonny Assu (2002) has recently been honoured in book form in a retrospective from Heritage House Publishing. The prolific alumnus has made waves across North America with his witty and poignant art, which has become a part of the permanent collections of a museums and galleries near and far, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Seattle Art Museum, the Museum of Anthropology, and more.

Sonny Assu: A Selective History follows 15 years of Assu’s artistic journey in essays, stories, and art works, including never before seen pieces.

Calling on brilliant creators Richard Van Camp, Ellyn Walker, Marianne Nicolson, Candice Hopkins, and Janet Rogers to add their voices to Assu's story, Sonny Assu: A Selective History illustrates the impact that Assu has had on not only individuals, but on the artistic landscape of this country. These additional narratives offer rare glimpses into the bonds built by creative expression, the relationships forged in art.

A copy will be available at the Ron Burnett Library + Learning Commons on campus. Flip through a copy to read how Assu’s striking, subversive, and personal work embraces juxtaposition to flip scripts and challenge broken narratives.

About Sonny Assu:

Sonny Assu (Liǥwildaʼx̱w of the Kwakwaka’wakw Nations) was raised in North Delta, BC, over 250 km away from his home ancestral home on Vancouver Island. Having been raised as your everyday average suburbanite, it wasn't until he was eight years old that he discovered his Liǥwildax̱w/Kwakwaka’wakw heritage. Later in life, this discovery would be the conceptual focal point that helped launch his unique art practice.

Assu's artistic practice is diverse: spanning painting, sculpture, photography, digital art and printmaking. Sonny negotiates Western and Kwakwaka’wakw principles of art making as a means of exploring his family history and the experiences of being an Indigenous person in the colonial state of Canada.

Having cut his teeth in Vancouver's art scene, Assu packed up and moved to Montreal to be with the love of his life. Five years later, along with his wife and beautiful daughter, Sonny moved back to BC, eventually settling back "home" in unceded Liǥwildaʼx̱w territory (Campbell River, BC.).

Assu received his BFA from the Emily Carr University in 2002 and was the recipient of their distinguished alumni award in 2006. He received the BC Creative Achievement Award in First Nations art in 2011 and was thrice long-listed for the Sobey Art Award. He received his MFA from Concordia University in 2017 and was one of the Laureates for the 2017 REVEAL - Indigenous Art Awards.

His work has been accepted into the National Gallery of Canada, Seattle Art Museum, Vancouver Art Gallery, Museum of Anthropology at UBC, Burke Museum at the University of Washington, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Hydro Quebec, Lotto Quebec and in various other public and private collections across Canada, the United States and the UK.

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