Art exhibition tells story of displacement and self-discovery – The Connection

The Art Gallery held an opening reception for Jennifer King’s exhibition titled “Home on Native Land” on Oct.17 about her experiences as a displaced First Nations woman born in Saskatchewan, Canada.

The exhibition included five different series focused on different aspects of King’s life, from being placed into the foster care system to reconnecting with her indigenous side.

“This work here tells a little bit of the story of the frustration of not being in charge of your own destiny, but the determination to be hopeful and happy anyways,” King said.

King’s Nature series depicted different parts of the ecological aspect of the land, using acrylic and oil on canvas to paint the rivers and plants.

The Cedar series represented the presence of cedar trees on Vancouver Island, where she used birch plywood from floor paneling coated in a plastic veneer to appear like cedar wood. She then would stain the wood and use acrylic to paint totem poles on some pieces.

The Assemblages series used copper, iron rust, plastic, wax and natural dyes to symbolize corruption in wealth, power and institutions.

King said her artwork gave her an opportunity to look at the ecological effects in Canada that First Nations people have to face, including the indigenous women that go missing and are murdered, which she tributes in her Assemblages series.

“It’s such a powerful exhibition and what she’s been through and the work she creates is heavy,” art department chair Robin Johnson said. “I think that it does still resonate with many of us in different ways.”

The Luggage series depicts King’s experience of being taken from her home with her grandparents on the reservation and being placed in a white family through the foster care system. For one of the pieces, she painted herself as a young girl on wood with acrylic paint.

“As a passing white person, I think that maybe I have lived with privileges that make me blend in and almost disappear in white culture,” King said. “But I sure stand out on the reservation, so I don’t belong anywhere.”

King’s “A Seat at the Table” piece can be seen at the entrance of the gallery right under the exhibition’s title wall. Numerous deconstructed chairs lay in a pile, representing the loss of ownership of a home.

King said she started her art journey in 2011, inspired by a course she took in graduate school that challenged her to look into herself.

“What this work does is, I took a few years to really examine the impact that it had on me personally, and then I went a little further and I examined the impact that it had on my tribe and then on other tribes around me,” King said.

King said she brought her artwork from Canada to Cosumnes River College in a U-Haul about a week before the opening reception with her husband designing custom boxes for each art piece to prevent damage while traveling.

Art Gallery assistant Jenelle Arriaga, 21-year-old studio arts major, said they put together the exhibition in about a week with a lot of math involved.

“We have to measure the height of the walls, the height and width of the paintings. It’s a lot of physical and a lot of mental stuff we have to do,” Arriaga said.

Johnson said the exhibitions are planned a year or two in advance with 30 to 40 hours’ worth of work going into each one. Johnson said she was happy to put on this exhibition since she originally knew King from the Sacramento area.

“We all have different cultures, different languages, but we’re experiencing a very similar thing. So, the question is: Why?” King said.

The exhibition is open until Nov. 17 in CRC’s Art Gallery from Tuesdays to Thursdays from noon to 4 p.m., or by appointment.