Sheldon Pierre Louis, a member of the Okanagan/Syilx Nation, is a multi disciplinary Okanagan/Syilx Artist. Sheldon’s ancestral roots have influenced his works in painting, drawing, carving, and sculpting.
Sheldon sits on the board of directors for the Arts Council of the North Okanagan in his second term as well sits at the Board for the Greater Vernon Museum and Archives. His work has been published in the Arts and Council Guide for the North Okanagan 2016 and 2017. Sheldon is a recipient of the First Peoples Cultural Council’s, Emerging Artist Development Award for 2015.
He is a co-founder and the lead visual artist of the Kama? Creative Aboriginal Arts Collective & is a member of Ullus Collective, both groups based in Syilx Art. As a member of the Re-Think 150: Indigenous Truth Collective Sheldon has worked on a youth mural in conjunction with the Kelowna Secondary School’s Honours Art 12 class. Sheldon has been awarded the Emerging Artist Award for 2015 from FPCC where he returned to the land and learned traditional practices of working with animal hides.
The body of work Sheldon created involved the meeting of traditional medium with contemporary styles. Through the production of moose raw hide Sheldon created raw hide sculptures depicting traditional stories as well as a raw hide canvas depicting two traditional hereditary Chiefs from the Southern Okanagan Territory. It was through this project that Sheldon found his calling as an Syilx artist. Sheldon has now utilized the history and traditional stories (Captikʷɬ) to inspire and create his own unique Syilx/Okanagan style of art.
Artist’s Statement:
This imagery shows a young toddler making an offering to the water and salmon. This imagery
speaks to the instilling of traditional protocols and teachings and the passing down of
knowledge to our littlest ones. We as adults carry out these protocols of offering tobacco to the
water and our little ones watch and mimic and learn. The imagery in the background is some
stylized images of Siya (Saskatoon berry) the siya is a representation of youth. This also speaks
to the teaching of young ones and also how the future of our water will be cared for by them
and carried forward. The salmon in our Syilx culture represents the “getting it done” or “the
worker” and so this too speaks to the work and effort that is needed to care for our waters. I
only used one salmon image to represent that all it takes is one salmon to come back to
reconnect our waters and our people back to the salmon.
The red ochre background represents our tulmin which is used for pictographs. The blue
represents the water. The orange line across the wall is an Earthline this represents the
land/earth. It outlines the young boy to show he and his energy is connected to the earth.