Rooted in the forests of Cap Rouge, Donica Larade’s art practice highlights native flora and fauna and encourages conversations around conservation, ecology action, and queer experience. Donica’s ability to capture fleeting moments in nature’s moments of kismet is unique. Whether they’re exploring a fresh flush of edible maritime mushrooms, studying the anatomy of a Highland fairy, or embedding sea rocket and a gannet wing into a cyanotype quilt, her attention feels exact and alive. Her unique ability to articulate a moment shines through.

Larade comes from an Acadian family displaced in the Expulsion, and the stories of that time live on in her art and profound relationship to the Cape Breton Highlands. Her mediums shift with the seasons, but an environmental throughline ties the work together.

In the wild, you’ll find Donica carrying a large tote bag full of various art supplies: some gouache, a well-worn watercolour palette, acrylic paint markers, or even cyanotype chemicals—she’s primed to create at a moment’s notice. A self-proclaimed jack-of-all-trades, their practice moves fluidly across materials, often drawing on second-hand finds and objects from the natural world. Donica’s work reminds us that realism doesn’t have to omit mysticism and storytelling.

Kyra Lambert: Tell me a little about your arts practice as currently is and where you tend to draw influence from.

Donica Larade: My process of creating has always been chaotic and unpredictable. Everything in your life has the ability to inspire art, especially the unexpected or mundane. Some concepts creep up and grow slowly over time, and some hit me like a freight train. I’ll be watching a movie or in the grocery store and frantically scribbling something down in my notes app. Sketchbooks then help me flesh ideas out and explore what medium to communicate them with. Themes I’ve been exploring recently involve mythology, philosophy, symbolism, death and natural cycles, local plants and animals, social justice movements, and generally the whimsy of the natural world. 

KL: How does your Chéticamp home base influence your arts perspective and practice? 

DL: Cape Breton is one of the only places I know where being an artist is taken seriously as a career path. Growing up spending time in Chéticamp, I was influenced by theatre productions, musicals, dances, and festivals that showed me art was culturally essential. As a kid, I walked door to door selling my drawings because I felt confident people around me valued art. A mix of wonderful landscapes, island artists, seriously funny people, and a rich culture that celebrates expression has been a winning formula for me.

KL: What pieces of folklore from Cape Breton do you hold close? 

DL: The fairies of Cape Breton Island are the creatures I’m most drawn to in regards to island mythology. The folklore I’ve most heavily focused on in my previous work has explored visual symbolism and tales associated with fairies. Something that compels me most about fairy lore is their presence throughout various communities found on Cape Breton Island, such as the Mi’kmaq, Gaelic, and Acadian people. It’s very telling of their cultural impact and powerful abilities. 

KL: All art, yours especially, “keeps record” of species and stories around our immediate environment. What drew you to this type of art practice?

DL: I think what first drew me to this type of note taking was in part my own discovery and curiosity for the species that lived locally. Observation and pattern recognition is a part of both the scientific and artistic process. I constantly traipse around with my nose inside guidebooks or the apps eBird and iNaturalist. The realization that many people are unaware of some of the amazing species in their own backyard and have that same curiosity pushed me into this style of highlighting them in my art. Flying squirrels, purple coral mushrooms, and saw-whet owls are only some of the incredible, unique species that people might not associate with the East Coast. 

KL: You have a very special ability in connecting people to the wealth of species in their immediate environment. Do you have any stories that come to mind when you think about introducing people to local invertebrates, or mushrooms? (Connecting people to their environment can be so empowering and supports interdependence, accessibility in education through the arts.)

DL: I think it can be difficult to choose one specific memory because of the way it’s completely integrated into my life and daily activities. However, some of my most memorable experiences in scientific communication have been with children. They are the most curious, ask the best questions, and hold the most unbridled joy. In our interactions, I often find myself thinking more creatively, pushing the limits of my own understanding, and being challenged into trying to explain complex genetic theory to an eight-year-old asking about butterflies. It’s incredibly rewarding to support young people on their own journeys of understanding the world around them. 

KL: How do you interact with the wider Nova Scotia arts scene? Where is your place in it? 

DL: Coming from a non-traditional art background has in turn led to a non-traditional relationship with the Nova Scotia art community. At times, I’ve felt isolated as an artist because of my lack of formal education. It can feel difficult to make connections and obtain the right resources without the formal structure that school can offer. Thankfully, living in small artistic towns like Chéticamp, Seaforth, and Antigonish, and taking part in residencies and festivals, has been deeply healing for my imposter syndrome. These experiences, as well as making connections with other artists and mentors, have allowed me to mitigate my feelings of insecurity in my art practice and feel like an essential piece in our art world. It takes all kinds in the arts, and my unique journey and experiences created my own niche in the scene. 

KL: How does art influence ecologically minded spaces? Is there a specific conservation effort in NS you’d like to call attention to? 

DL: Traditionally, art and science have always been entwined in a way in which one was rarely found without the other. Note taking, sketching, or illustrating are an essential resource in the sciences to help convey information. Looking back at extraordinary naturalists like Maria Sibylla Merian, Ernst Haeckel, or Anna Atkins, I think the relationship between science and art was much more widely acknowledged and appreciated before the twenty-first century than it is today. For me, the beauty of illustration and its role in the sciences is to communicate difficult or interesting concepts, advocate on behalf of species and the environment, and celebrate the mysticality of nature. There are too many amazing conservation efforts to mention just one, but CPAWS, Nature Nova Scotia, and the Ecology Action Centre offer great resources for conservation work being done in your area!

Above and below: Mario Doucette, “La dispersion des Acadiens (after Henri Beau),” 91 x 152 cm, oil on wood 2015-2016.

In the summer of 2004, I worked in the gift shop at the beautiful Grand-Pré historic site in the Annapolis Valley, where visitors learn about the history of the Acadian people and their expulsion from their homeland at the hands of the British Army. I had been politely let go from my previous job at a café, due, I suspect, to my penchant for listening to music and daydreaming rather than polishing glassware or serving customers. At the Boutique de Grand- Pré, I was free to play what I wanted from the selection of Acadian music for sale. My go-to was Madame Butlerfly, Edith Butler’s little-known foray into New Age music. Sitting nestled amongst Acadian stoneware pottery and hooked rugs, listening to a rendition of Grain de Mil that featured backing vocals sung in what I believe to be Mandarin, I had a clear view of historical murals of Acadians building dykes and tilling the reclaimed soil in bonnets and aprons or breeches and high socks. Artist Mario Doucette has never liked these depictions.

“It always bothered me. I tried to research the clothing of the time, but in my art it never looked right.”

He remembers being introduced to similar images as a teenager. In his earlier series, Histoires and Bagarres, Doucette uses line drawing and a naive painting style as a child’s lens in an attempt to go back to the romanticized, mythologized version of Acadian history he learned as a kid and imagine it differently. In his vibrant, unaffected yet fantastical drawings and paintings from these series, you can sense the teenage urge to embellish the margins of the quaint, folkloric depictions found in interpretive centres and textbooks.

Basing his paintings on extensive research, Doucette promotes aspects of Acadian history that have been obscured in popular portrayals inspired by works like Longfellow’s epic poem Evangeline, where Acadians are presented as tragic figures and passive victims. “In my paintings I highlight heroes that people should know who we don’t learn about in school. We didn’t know that there was an Acadian resistance, we didn’t know that there were people like [resistance leaders] Father Le-Loutre and Joseph Broussard.”

“We only have one perspective of our history, the perspective of the British. The histories were written based on their accounts.” —MARIO DOUCETTE

However, there is a question mark hanging over Doucette’s work. In his paintings, Acadians do not wear the folkloric costumes I remember from the Grand-Pré historic site; instead, they are depicted as translucent figures, or their bodies are scribbled over, or they are naked. More recently, in Harias, they are shown wearing classical robes. These choices underscore a key issue in Doucette’s project: the absence of a historical record that reflects the Acadian perspective.

“It’s a people that existed, but we don’t know a lot of details of how they lived … We only have one perspective of our history, the perspective of the British. The histories were written based on their accounts.”

Faced with the impossibility of a truly accurate version of Acadian history, Doucette has accepted that he cannot go around the traditional narrative, but must go through. Rather than feel limited by the lack of alternatives to the historical tradition, he chooses to see the freedom that his playful approach to historical narrative and his outsiders’ perspective afford him. “I have an incredible liberty to play with these ideas and imagine what it was like in Acadia because we really don’t know.”

Mario Doucette, “Boishébert fut blessé à la jambe – colour study,” 30 x 40 cm, Ink and coloured pencils on paper, 2017.

Above and below: Mario Doucette, “Les Acadiens de la Nouvelle-Écosse (régime anglais) – colour study,” 27 x 40 cm, Ink and coloured pencils on paper, 2017.

If Doucette’s work from his first series strongly recalls the aesthetics of outsider art, it is not by accident. Doucette has a strong admiration for self-taught artists like Henry Darger and appreciates the freedom afforded by operating entirely outside the system. The marginal role that Acadians have had in telling their own history makes them outsiders too.

Including anachronisms and mixing his own inventions with historical symbols, Doucette creates parallels between his own fantastical choices and those of historical artists. Symbols like the British lion and Superman, American myth par excellence, confront each other in his art and reveal the absurdity inherent in imposed external narratives. In this historical world of toppled idols, Doucette is free to dress his Acadians how he wants. “I thought if we have no stories of Acadians from their lifetime, then they kind of exist of out of time. So I continued drawing them nude, and now I put them in Roman robes, which ties in with the neoclassical style I’m attempting.”

At first glance, the meticulous neoclassical oil paintings of Harias are a major departure from the playful outsider aesthetic of Doucette’s earlier art, but they can almost be seen as parts of a larger installation. In his exhibitions, he decorates the gallery to recreate a salon or a history museum and viewers enter another world. “The message of propaganda is transmitted in multiple ways, including through the context the work is presented in.” He calls his work propaganda art and it’s clear that this is how he looks at all historical art. Doucette appropriates the trappings of official, noble art, from the robes to the gallery walls, to give weight to his new versions of Acadian history.

“People behave differently in this kind of space. They tend to whisper.” The alternate history first imagined in the naive style of a child’s drawing now comes alive and we are able to step into it. Doucette recognizes that his subject and his audience are very localized—he says that he has Acadian viewers in mind as he creates his work—and yet he hopes everyone who sees his work will appreciate the global appeal. His engagement with historical absence has lead him to engage with universal questions about historiography, the political role of historical art, and what possibilities there are to move beyond received identities and narratives. Like a daydreamer in the midst of a history lesson, Mario Doucette is immersed in tradition, looking for freedom, for his art and for the Acadian identity.

Mathieu Léger, “On a Silver Platter,” 2014. Exhibition view in Galerie Sans Nom, Moncton, NB, Canada. Installation. Photo credit: Mathieu Léger

Editor’s Note: This review originally ran in the Fall 2014 issue of Visual Arts News.

In Acadian author France Daigle’s 2012 novel Pour sûr, Antoinette opens a game of Scrabble against her husband, The Cripple, with a controversial 125 points. Her word, dialyse, she argued, to her husband’s chagrin, contained two vertical words—“y” and “a.”

“It wasn’t the 21 points that bothered The Cripple,” writes Daigle, “it was the principle of the thing.” While The Cripple and Antoinette play—mixing French and Acadian words—they discuss a local murder, Oedipus and psychoanalysis. The domestic scene encapsulates Daigle’s project, exploring the concept of value/values through the lens of contemporary Acadie.

It’s within this milieu that we can situate Acadian artist Mathieu Léger’s exhibition Sur un plateau d’argent / On a Silver Platter (Galerie Sans Nom, Moncton, April 25 to May 30, 2014). The show was composed of second-hand silver plates engraved with texts that, as guest curator Jennifer Bélanger explains in her curatorial statement, “address the impacts on the ever-changing geographic Acadian landscape … reference storied genealogy” and “… directly illustrate the impact on the inherited Chiac dialect.” A few examples: “best déportation ever;” “tu m’corriges en-an-on;” “fricot.”

The concept, like the engraved text, is a one-liner. The castoff silver plates, as “cultural detritus” of British aristocracy, are reappropriated by Léger using the culture the British sought to destroy.

This is Léger at his most digestible, serving the concept “on a silver platter.” An overview of his oeuvre, though, reveals the work to be more than ironic revenge. Recently, he’s been preoccupied by abstract narratives. A stretch of slush-soiled snow (Demography of Virulence, 2012) says more than what’s depicted—the speed of the plow, the placement of streetlamps and muddiness of slush, etc. His ongoing drawing series, Transects, riff on how “scientific concepts can be analyzed through mark-making.” In another photograph series, he describes aerial shots of trees: “When things get overlooked, other things become apparent.”

Frequently working with photography, the aphorisms populating his blog explain his predilection: “Sometimes things seem off, because they are”; “Similar is not always same”; and “Perspective renders different opinions of one line.”

Given the abstruseness of his oeuvre, the straightforwardness of Sur un plateau d’argent / On a Silver Platter is intentional and requisite. The show was immaculately installed and lit, eliminating the chance of aloof viewing. Léger drew you in, seduced by silver.

Adroit, he had complete control, preying on viewing sensibilities, which sees the focus placed on the engraved text, on his orientation of the pieces.

What we don’t admire is the plate itself. This neglect addresses notions of value and values in the relationship between idea and object. In this case, the idea is nothing without the object. The object, however, as “cultural detritus,” has no value, and, arguably, isn’t the object once it becomes vehicle for the idea.

Yet, we value the “art,” not the plates. This is our error, and reveals our value system as stagnant. In discussing his work with Canadian Art, Léger said, “I’m questioning every aspect of artmaking and the art world, and the place of art within culture. And the place of culture within society.” Why should his decision to engrave the plates, and arrange them in a display, engender value?

To recall Nietzsche, the great critic of morality, objectifying value, or prescribing value to an action, out of custom was “dishonest, cowardly, lazy!” Values should be determined in context, informed by “the acquisition of new experiences and the correction of customs.”

We engage art staidly—stupidly, if you consult Nietzsche—with customary values, and the values of fame and fortune, inhibiting the creation of new customs. As such, contemporary art may be invaluable to distill our zeitgeist; it’s rendered popularly irrelevant.

So what of Daigle and Léger’s interest in values? Acadian culture in both instances is posited as a potential touchstone, one of play, value-bending, miscommunication and bastardized tradition.

The cultural confusion of Acadie fosters a context for new customs, as R.B. Kitaj outlined in the First Diasporist Manifesto: ”If a people is dispersed, hurt, hounded, uneasy, their pariah condition confounds expectation in profound and complex ways.”

This is invoked in two pieces in Léger’s show, one reading “assimilable,” the other “assimilable.” This is the perspective Léger desires. Rather than point- counterpoint, the strikethrough creates a new value premised on the past. It’s an edit, an engagement—not erasure. It confounds expectation, being similar to its opposition.

Similar isn’t always the same, because it’s tinctured by history, cultural provenance, context. Engaging with his cultural context, Léger visions new values to provoke us to see if we’ll do the same. But we don’t. Sur un plateau d’argent / On a Silver Platter is a perfectly palatable contemporary art, and Léger wants us to choke on it.