Contemporary Indigenous Art | Colleen Gray Art

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Each original painting has a unique story that accompanies the work.

Click on the image to enlarge and read the story.

First Language. Story: We are faceless to the Earth. She does not care for the colour of our skin but rather for the heart that beats within us. When it begins, she listens and knows where to send her love. From the moment of the first beat, our hearts speak her language until we can speak no more.
She has given us life, so we might learn how to poison her blood. She taught us how to take and by our own hand, we have learned well.

We have lost our original heart language and substituted it with pale efforts and half measures. We must try harder to connect to the core understanding that creation puts as much effort into making a bird as it does in making a human; we are no more or no less than the extension of a greater heartbeat.

Mixed media on Arches coldpress paper
Framing: Conservation framing/acid free matting, non-glare acrylic glass.

Price: $725.00

Story: The robe was comforting. It had been made from the softest hide, adorned inside with ancient markings, symbols in ochre. It smelled like smoke and bear root. It smelled like strength, its weight took her pain. It was the Holy Man's robe. She must be very sick.

The robe held her in the embrace of her Ancestors, and she stayed in the dream protected by the whispering of an ancient language she had never heard before.

She danced in the beautiful robe with the strange symbols and told her story to the sun, grateful for her life.

For people who survive the ravages of cancer. May you always know the pleasure of its absence.

Watercolour on Arches coldpress paper

Framed: Conservation framing/acid-free matting, non-glare glass.

Price: $550.00

Algonquin Cabin Release - Artwork by Indigenous Artist Colleen Gray. Ontario Canada. Story: Algonquin Park is home to many cottages. The land will return to the Nations who have always called this place home. Buildings will vanish. The land will return to its original state, devoid of human influence, silent and serene. The ancient waters will move along as they always have, never taking notice of the new change in ownership.

Watercolour on synthetic paper

Framing: Conservation framing/acid-free matting, non-glare glass.

Price: $395.00 [Framed]

Story: Red Thunderbird Woman visits the edge of the Veil between her world and the world of the Creator's children. Her heart carried a tenderness for the two-leggeds. At the camp, an old woman blows soft breath into the ashes of a cooking fire sending sparks into the wood, catching the pitch. She hears the telltale crackle and feeds the hungry little fire dry needles and twigs - an easy build for weak fingers. She nodded to the fire in gratitude to Red Thunderbird Woman for breathing into her fire.
Old Woman sensed the ache of her man's bones as he slept just beyond the fire wrapped in holey blankets mended by skilled fingers. Old woman sighed and sent healing thoughts across the fire to his bed. Red Thunderbird Woman saw an opportunity and breathed into the old woman as she sighed her prayer. The healing warmth of the Thunderbird that had been gifted to the old woman, who now gifted it to the old man on the breath of love. This was good. Red Thunderbird Woman would tell the story to her sisters.

Watercolour on Arches coldpress paper

Framed: Conservation framing/acid free matting, non-glare acrylic glass.

Price: $685.00

The Fireman's View

Story: They are the last line of defense that stands between an insatiable hunger and what we love and call our own. Those who stand at the mouth of the fire are warriors of impressive courage willing to do what so many cannot. What thoughts do they think when a wall of water rises up to quell the hungry fire that would consume them? We are grateful.

Watercolour on synthetic paper.

Framing: Conservation framing, acid free matting/non-glare glass.

Price: $225.00

Painting of horse with fire breathing out of mouth. Wind in His Hair. Story: He had lived a long life filled with wide prairies, ancient stone monoliths, fine grazing, and the passing of time. That life lived in his hair as so many memories.

He was old now, tired now, and his spirit began the slow release of the life he'd lived. He had been born free, had run free, and would leave the world never knowing the touch of a hand, the taste of metal or the weight of a rider. It was as it should be for a thing so beautifully and irreversibly wild.

Mixed media on paper
27.5 x 23”

Conservation framing,

Non-glare glass, acid free matting.

Framed: $695

Story: The night cares nothing for the weakness of boats and men. A cauldron of light and wind stirs the ink and bones of the violent sea and pity is vanquished to daggers of froth beneath the glowing dance of an apathetic sky.

17x17”

Watercolour on black synthetic paper

Framed:
Conservation circular framing/non-glare glass

$440.00

Daylight Savings Time. Majestic caribou resting on the land against a blue sky with sun. Daylight Savings Time. Original painting for sale by Indigenous Artist Colleen Gray, Ontario Canada

Story: The storm goes quiet. The spirit of an ancient buffalo looks between the veils of this world into a world beyond ours. Grandmother Moon sends her soft light like gossamer whispers and guides him back to his ancestral home.

26x18”
Watercolour on synthetic paper
(conservation framing, non-glare glass)

Framed: $555.00

View of earth from space. Story: Birds have been landing on ocean shores for millennia. They take no notice of flags planted by foolish men citing doctrines of discovery, claiming land they could never own and building rules they would never follow. We are a foolish species in our belief that we have permanence. In the game of life, their expiration date is not dependent on ours. Unframed.

Transit. Story: A transit occurs when a planet passes between a star and its observer.

All around us celestial bodies move, grow, live and die as embodiments of energy in the undetermined universe. We are cosmic specs in the great unknown; a glimmer of constrained life in a vast galaxy that is no more than a grain of sand in the omnipresent black ocean of everything that is.

Mixed media on 10" synthetic paper.

Price: $240.00

Story: They were brothers and the horses were their family. The time had come to ask the Horse Nation to bring the people a Horse Dance Ceremony. They fasted in the caves beneath sacred stars. At night while sky ponies listened, they recounted ancient stories of good hunts, gentle winters, and the powerful friendship between the horse and the people who loved them.
(Inspired by my Elders’ journey as a ceremonial Road Man)

24x36" Ink, watercolour, acrylic on synthetic paper

Framed $2,600.00

The Prayer Circle/Prayer Meeting. Painting by Contemporary artist Colleen Gray. Eagle Helper watches over the world ...

Story: The beauty of the Grandmother medicine is universal- there are many moons and vast knowledge if we open our hearts and minds to it.

Mixed Media on Watercolour Paper

Framed
Size: 24x36" Conservation framing, non-glare glass

$2,300.00

Story: With the darkening of the sky, Grandmother Moon begins her journey across the horizon. She walks with the 4 Moons Pony and when her body, heavy with prayers and healing, becomes too weak, the Four Moons Pony will carry her to the sky and back home again with the rising of Grandfather Sun.

17x14 Marker and watercolour on paper

Framed $675.00

This is Only a Test. Contemporary Indigenous painting by Colleen Gray.

Story: They were together always, riding the storm winds next to each other. They were certain that one heart would always know where the other heart was no matter how much the sea raged beneath their love.

Ink on synthetic paper

Framed
26x12" Conservation framing, non-glare glass, acid free matting.

$475.00

My Mountain Home - 16x20" by Colleen Gray

Black Snake Prophecy by artist Colleen Gray

Meet Me on the Grasslands at Sunrise - Alcohol and ink on synthetic paper. by Colleen Gray

November Chill - 7x10" watercolour on arches paper by Colleen Gray

We Spoke to it in Our Language - Watercolour on Arches 140 lb cold pressed paper 10x20” - by Colleen Gray

The Blue Mountain - Watercolour on synthetic - by Colleen Gray

The Fork in their Tongues - 16x20 Watercolour on synthetic paper, acrylic by Colleen Gray

Young Poundmaker by Colleen Gray

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Address:

Smiths Falls, Ontario

Canada

Telephone:

613-252-2621

Email:

colleengrayart@gmail.com

© 2024 Colleen Gray Art. Site built by MBFM.ca

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