Cheyenne Rain LeGrande and Justin Somjen at Wil Aballe, Vancouver

CHEYENNE RAIN LeGRANDE

Nehiyaw Alien is a solo exhibition by Cheyenne Rain

LeGrande . . Showcasing their iconic hand painted Platform Moccasins and Rainbow Thunderbird bepsi/ beer tab shawl, each work is inspired by their identity as Nehiyaw Alien. Stretched pink hide and interlaced baby pink ribbon are some of the materials used to celebrate the artist’s love for the hybrid space between tradition and contemporary pop culture. Nehiyaw Alien is an identity made of expressing one’s self through fashion, colour, makeup and photography.

Cheyenne Rain LeGrande is a Nehiyaw artist, from Bigstone Cree Nation. They currently reside in Amiskwaciy Waskahikan also known as Edmonton, Alberta.Their work is an expression of love, intergenerational resilience and intergenerational joy. Through the use of their body and language, they speak to the past, present and future. Cheyenne’s work is rooted in the strength to feel, express and heal. Their work explores the hybrid space between tradition and Nehiyaw pop culture. Bringing her ancestors with her, she moves through installation, photography, video, sound, fashion and performance art.

JUSTIN SOMJEN
Spines

Spines are defensive structures found in both plants and animals characterized by sharp, pointed projections. In plants, spines are typically modified leaves or parts of the vascular tissue from the stem. These modifications result in hard, discoloured spikes that extend outward, such as those seen on cacti. In vertebrate animals, spines are usually modified hairs composed of hard keratin. In aquatic creatures like fish and underwater invertebrates, such as sea urchins, spines may contain venom, which can be harmful or even lethal to predators.

In another context, the spine is a key component of the vertebrate central nervous system. In humans, it evolved to support an upright posture, a feat no other animal has achieved to the same extent. This unique adaptation has enabled humans to stand and move upright more than any other mammalian species, allowing our gaze to evolve from the ground to the sky. The spine, which supports our vertical posture, can be seen as a biomimetic spike reaching upward like a plant striving toward the sun.

The exhibition Spines investigates the parallels between architectural spikes and analogous defensive structures found in the natural world. Utilizing finials— decorative spikes commonly found on fences, rooftops, and staircases—as a focal point, Somjen highlights the shared formal characteristics between these human-made constructs and evolutionary adaptations observed in flora and fauna. His conviction that architectural spikes resonate with biological evolution informs his artistic motivation, positioning these elements as relics that bridge natural history, biology, and the innate human desire for ascendance and protection.

Spines consists of four decorative frames, each adorned with wooden finials and a diverse array of motifs that serve a tripartite function: enhancing the ornamental quality of the sculptures, engaging with tropes of natural history and medieval symbolism, and evoking skeletal or calcified representations of both plant and animal anatomy. Within this work, significant motifs such as dogs, orchids, poisonous plants, vertebrae, biomimetic flora, and birds emerge, often depicted in defensive postures. The work creates frames within frames, forming a clear focal point or centrepiece reminiscent of cameo carvings. These centrepieces include a disembodied hand feeding blood to a Venus flytrap, two dogs fighting, a lizard in a defensive pose, and the scales and prickles of the pinecone of Methuselah—the bristlecone pine tree, the longest-living organism on the planet.

This mix of biological miscellany reimagines traditional motifs and decorative moldings, departing from established patterns of repetition and order. Instead, Somjen’s chaotic and perplexing arrangements allude to disorder, rejecting the romanticized notion of nature as idyllic. While elaborate, the handcrafted sculptures possess a “blocky” quality, appearing neither old nor new, serving as protective emblems of our present moment, reminiscent of coats of arms or shields.

— Text by Justin Somjen