Artist remembering victims; exhibit cancelled
An artist painted 69 oil paintings of some of the dead and missing women in Canada. Some of her paintings were of victims of Robert Pickton. I have looked at as many as I can find online and the paintings that are available are not gore-filled. They are remembrances of these women, all of the women. They do not glorify the deaths or mystery, but rather seem to just represent them.
For some reason the exhibit has been pulled from a showing at the UBC Museum of Anthropology. Pamela Masik’s oil painting series The Forgotten was slated to open next month but was criticized by aboriginal women’s groups who found it hurtful or exploitive. I am not sure what they were actually objecting to.
Are we just to forget these woman? Forget that they existed, then were killed or just disappeared?
I also wonder what the families think. Some, at least, it seems support Ms. Masik.
Ernie Crey, brother of murder victim Dawn Crey, said he would “dearly like” to see the portrait of his sister and said he shares Masik’s disappointment and frustration.
“It seems some folks think they can speak for each and every family of the murdered and missing women.”
Ms. Masik had this to say:
“It saddens me as I see this as society’s continuing refusal to acknowledge what happened to these women,” Masik said in a statement.
“I saw my role as an artist to bear witness to the 69 women who were marginalized, went missing and many, ultimately murdered, not by the hands of a serial killer but by our society viewing these women as inconsequential,” she said.
“How is not showing these paintings going to help us confront the real issues of these marginalized women who are still going missing to this day all across Canada?”
I do not understand why people would not want this to go on, for these paintings to be seen by as many as possible. Maybe some of the missing women can be identified. People might learn something, become more aware, maybe a woman (alive or deceased) will be recognized and a family will know what happened to her, maybe one less woman will go missing? Who knows what could come from this.
I say let the show go on!
Real Life Monsters 