REGINA, Sask. — A book, a length of rope, a cup of tea or a stone can seem unremarkable on its own. Arranged together in a painting by David Garneau, those same objects can open a conversation about Indigenous identity, colonialism and the histories Canadians are still learning to confront.
The Métis artist’s touring exhibition Dark Chapters is on display at the Dunlop Art Gallery inside Regina’s Central Library until Jan. 5, 2027. Curated by Arin Fay of the Nelson Museum Archives and Gallery, the exhibition brings together about 40 meticulously rendered still-life paintings selected from a series Garneau has developed over more than six years. A publication of the same name invited 17 writers and poets to offer their own interpretations of his work.
Garneau, a professor of visual arts at the University of Regina and a member of the Métis Nation-Saskatchewan, said he chose still-life painting partly because he wanted to use its familiar visual language to explore questions usually associated with history painting and political art.
“I've always wanted to work on still life paintings because they're considered the most conservative and non-political and sort of the lowest form of art, so to speak, in the academy,” Garneau said. “But I wanted to fill it with some of the things in the so-called higher forms like history painting and philosopher, political painting and get some ideas in there.”
The exhibition’s title refers to Justice Murray Sinclair’s description of the residential school system in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s reports as “one of the darkest, most troubling chapters in our nation's history.”
For Garneau, the idea of a chapter carries more than a reference to a painful past. A book can be reopened, reconsidered and read again, making it a fitting metaphor for a history Canadians cannot simply leave behind.
“The idea of the chapter is the idea that the page could be turned,” he said. “But also it's a sense that unlike some kind of timeline that you couldn't go backward, you were going forward. A book is something you can return to.”
Books appear throughout the paintings, representing institutional learning while raising questions about how knowledge is preserved and passed on. Garneau said Indigenous communities face a difficult balance between documenting culture and keeping it alive through language, relationships and practice.
He described the tension facing Elders who worry about younger generations losing languages and stories, while also questioning whether putting knowledge into books could lead people to rely on written records instead of learning directly from Elders.
“All the paintings have this complexity of trying to preserve culture and live culture, but also know that we've got to live it by doing it, not just by writing it,” Garneau said.
That complexity also appears in the objects he places together. Indigenous and European religious symbols can sit side by side, reflecting the cultural and spiritual balancing act experienced by Métis people and other Indigenous people living in the contemporary world.
Garneau said he wanted to explore these subjects without relying on graphic depictions of suffering. Instead, he invites viewers to study the objects, notice patterns and gradually build their own understanding of what the paintings might mean.
“I wanted to sort of bring it down to home, to something that you would look at and it wouldn't be kind of a trauma porn thing, you know, where you're seeing suffering and so on, but you would piece together by looking at the objects what's going on,” he said.
That approach leaves room for visitors to bring their own experiences and knowledge to the work. Garneau said he has been surprised by how far some interpretations reach beyond the meanings he initially considered.
“It's not like I don't know how much a person learns from it by looking at a picture,” he said. “It might make you think about something else. I think it's more about the connections you make for yourself based on what you already know and experience.”
The accompanying book extends that conversation. Rather than explain every painting himself, Garneau invited 17 contributors, including art historians, a philosopher and poets, to select works and respond to them. Their perspectives, he said, created space for meanings he might not have reached on his own.
“I could have written the book myself and just explained it, but I don't want them to become that didactic, you know, where I'm sort of forcing one message on,” he said.
For Garneau, the work is intended to make reconciliation something people recognize in the world around them, rather than a subject confined to formal discussions or historical documents.
“I'm hoping that when they enter that they'll see those objects again, you know, like a cup of tea or something, they'll have these resonant experiences and get the sense that what we're doing with reconciliation is part of our every day now, especially here on the Prairies,” he said.
The Dunlop Art Gallery holds particular meaning for Garneau, who said he grew up in Edmonton in a family without much money and spent time at the city’s art gallery and library. He has lived in Regina for 27 years and considers the library a home away from home.
He said the gallery’s location offers an opportunity for people to encounter the exhibition without planning a visit to an art museum.
“I just love that casual people thinking they're coming to get a book or a book tape or use a computer will stumble across my work and hopefully be moved by it,” Garneau said. “It's just the best location in my view.”
