KWANTLEN
STURGEON

Experimentation has been an important part of Susan Point's work from very early on in her career. In these two images, the artist moves away from the circular confines of the spindle whorl, creating instead free flowing compositions comprised of repeated images of fish. A College of the same name, located in British Columbia, originally commissioned the design for Kwantlen. In the print, the arcing bodies of four salmon, shown in profile, create a puzzle-like pattern with the heads of the fish all pointing toward the center of the composition, while their fins and tails delineate the boarder. The human face each fish contains in the center of its body echoes the fish's round eyes and open mouth. This incorporation of the human face recalls the imagery of spindle whorls, thus alluding to a traditional Coast Salish element within a very non-traditional composition.
Sturgeon, a later variation on this composition, depicts a horizontal stacking of arcing sturgeon. Instead of repeating the human face seen in Kwantlen, Susan incorporates a female figure into the center of each fish. A legend referring to the transformation of a woman into a sturgeon was the artist's inspiration for this design innovation (Karen Duffek, p. 5). While she experiments with her subject matter, Point remains constant in her use of a Coast Salish design vocabulary. The now familiar trigons and crescents are used throughout the image to articulate the bodies of the women and the fish. Equally recognizable in both prints are Susan's characteristically fluid lines and her balanced juxtaposition of negative and positive space. An undulating sense of motion is the result of Susan's unique style in both works. Reflecting on Sturgeon in a 1986 discussion with Karen Duffek, Point says: "The design is swaying away from traditional Salish art. It is free flowing, and the figure of the woman inside the sturgeon was my own invention. I think Indian artists shouldn't be restricted to doing traditional pieces all the time. It's time to move on."

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