David Garneau is a Métis painter, writer, curator, and educator who creates metaphorical still life paintings. Based on Treaty 4 lands, Saskatchewan, David Garneau is one of Canada’s foremost Métis artists, painters, and public intellectuals, who has been leading the charge in complex conversations around the nuances of Métis identity and the politics of Indigeneity, Indigenization, and non-colonial aesthetics in the colonized lands of Canada. He is the winner of the 2023 Governor General’s Award for Outstanding Achievement in Visual and Media Arts. Arin Fay is a curator living near Kaslo, British Columbia. Her areas of special interest include publications, curatorial writing and advocating for art and artists. An active member of the arts and culture community in the Kootenay region for thirty years, as an artist, volunteer, board member and curator. Arin is currently the Curator at the Nelson Museum, Archives and Gallery (NMAG). Nic Wilson (they/he) is an artist and writer who was born in the Wolastoqiyik territory known as Fredericton, New Brunswick in 1988. Their work often engages time, queer lineage, decay, and the distance between art practice and literature. Their writing has appeared in BlackFlash Magazine, Peripheral Review, NORK, C Magazine, and Border Crossings. Their book of essays Colossal Equine Statue was published by ARP Books in 2024.

"The humour, historical awareness and wisdom in Garneau’s seemingly inanimate tableaus – often no more than a rock, a book, and a braid of sweetgrass – shows Garneau to be not just a great artist but a leading voice for change..." —Jury Citation, 2026 Saskatchewan Book Awards Publishing Prize“A smart collection of art and essays, Dark Chapters activates deep conversations about art, resistance, and sovereignty. Visiting with paintings by Métis artist David Garneau, seventeen poets, curators, and thinkers offer complex provocations that trouble and activate new forms of communities and relationships.” —Dr. Carmen Robertson, Canada Research Chair in North American Indigenous Visual and Material Culture“Provocative, probing, and precarious, Dark Chapters pairs the poetic, literary, political, and critical responses of seventeen authors with the deceptively uncluttered yet gravid and combustible still lifes of David Garneau. This collection of pictures and words undertakes a necessary examination of the uncanny oppositions and disquieting literal and symbolic inversions that signify and animate the Indigenous history of Canada.” —Bonnie Devine“Dark Chapters is a lesson in relationality and innovation. Built through conversations between Garneau’s work and artists/writers, the intergenerational contributors to this book come together in relation to Garneau and his still lives to explore the important contribution the artist has made to Canadian, Indigenous, and International art.” —Erin Sutherland

• ForewordNic WilsonStill LifeJohn G. HamptonStone and Rock: I Have Failed YouPeter MorinWander CarriedCecily NicholsonOn KinshipPaul SeesequasisLearning from Indigenous Academic SolidarityJeff DerksenKnock KnockLillian AllenUnsettling the Colonial GazeTrevor HerriotSmudge Before Reading and The Land Does Not ForgetTarene ThomasConfession (after David Garneau) by Rita BouvierFuse and Formal and Informal EducationJesse WenteThe Problem with PleasureBilly-Ray BelcourtMétis Realism: On the Materiality of Smoke and Relationality of RocksDavid HowesAllies (after Hsieh and Montano)Larissa LaiAlly Tear ReliquaryArin FayUnderstanding Attempted Enlightening: Between Language as Power…and Light as LifeDick AvernsSpineFred WahThe Resting Heartbeat of a Wounded BirdSusan MusgraveGalleryAbout the ArtistAbout the CuratorAbout the EditorAbout the ContributorsList of ArtworksIndex

David Garneau is a Métis painter, writer, curator, and educator who creates metaphorical still life paintings. Based on Treaty 4 lands, Saskatchewan, David Garneau is one of Canada’s foremost Métis artists, painters, and public intellectuals, who has been leading the charge in complex conversations around the nuances of Métis identity and the politics of Indigeneity, Indigenization, and non-colonial aesthetics in the colonized lands of Canada. He is the winner of the 2023 Governor General’s Award for Outstanding Achievement in Visual and Media Arts. Arin Fay is a curator living near Kaslo, British Columbia. Her areas of special interest include publications, curatorial writing and advocating for art and artists. An active member of the arts and culture community in the Kootenay region for thirty years, as an artist, volunteer, board member and curator. Arin is currently the Curator at the Nelson Museum, Archives and Gallery (NMAG). Nic Wilson (they/he) is an artist and writer who was born in the Wolastoqiyik territory known as Fredericton, New Brunswick in 1988. Their work often engages time, queer lineage, decay, and the distance between art practice and literature. Their writing has appeared in BlackFlash Magazine, Peripheral Review, NORK, C Magazine, and Border Crossings. Their book of essays Colossal Equine Statue was published by ARP Books in 2024.

"The humour, historical awareness and wisdom in Garneau’s seemingly inanimate tableaus – often no more than a rock, a book, and a braid of sweetgrass – shows Garneau to be not just a great artist but a leading voice for change..." —Jury Citation, 2026 Saskatchewan Book Awards Publishing Prize“A smart collection of art and essays, Dark Chapters activates deep conversations about art, resistance, and sovereignty. Visiting with paintings by Métis artist David Garneau, seventeen poets, curators, and thinkers offer complex provocations that trouble and activate new forms of communities and relationships.” —Dr. Carmen Robertson, Canada Research Chair in North American Indigenous Visual and Material Culture“Provocative, probing, and precarious, Dark Chapters pairs the poetic, literary, political, and critical responses of seventeen authors with the deceptively uncluttered yet gravid and combustible still lifes of David Garneau. This collection of pictures and words undertakes a necessary examination of the uncanny oppositions and disquieting literal and symbolic inversions that signify and animate the Indigenous history of Canada.” —Bonnie Devine“Dark Chapters is a lesson in relationality and innovation. Built through conversations between Garneau’s work and artists/writers, the intergenerational contributors to this book come together in relation to Garneau and his still lives to explore the important contribution the artist has made to Canadian, Indigenous, and International art.” —Erin Sutherland

• ForewordNic WilsonStill LifeJohn G. HamptonStone and Rock: I Have Failed YouPeter MorinWander CarriedCecily NicholsonOn KinshipPaul SeesequasisLearning from Indigenous Academic SolidarityJeff DerksenKnock KnockLillian AllenUnsettling the Colonial GazeTrevor HerriotSmudge Before Reading and The Land Does Not ForgetTarene ThomasConfession (after David Garneau) by Rita BouvierFuse and Formal and Informal EducationJesse WenteThe Problem with PleasureBilly-Ray BelcourtMétis Realism: On the Materiality of Smoke and Relationality of RocksDavid HowesAllies (after Hsieh and Montano)Larissa LaiAlly Tear ReliquaryArin FayUnderstanding Attempted Enlightening: Between Language as Power…and Light as LifeDick AvernsSpineFred WahThe Resting Heartbeat of a Wounded BirdSusan MusgraveGalleryAbout the ArtistAbout the CuratorAbout the EditorAbout the ContributorsList of ArtworksIndex

David Garneau is a Métis painter, writer, curator, and educator who creates metaphorical still life paintings. Based on Treaty 4 lands, Saskatchewan, David Garneau is one of Canada’s foremost Métis artists, painters, and public intellectuals, who has been leading the charge in complex conversations around the nuances of Métis identity and the politics of Indigeneity, Indigenization, and non-colonial aesthetics in the colonized lands of Canada. He is the winner of the 2023 Governor General’s Award for Outstanding Achievement in Visual and Media Arts. Arin Fay is a curator living near Kaslo, British Columbia. Her areas of special interest include publications, curatorial writing and advocating for art and artists. An active member of the arts and culture community in the Kootenay region for thirty years, as an artist, volunteer, board member and curator. Arin is currently the Curator at the Nelson Museum, Archives and Gallery (NMAG). Nic Wilson (they/he) is an artist and writer who was born in the Wolastoqiyik territory known as Fredericton, New Brunswick in 1988. Their work often engages time, queer lineage, decay, and the distance between art practice and literature. Their writing has appeared in BlackFlash Magazine, Peripheral Review, NORK, C Magazine, and Border Crossings. Their book of essays Colossal Equine Statue was published by ARP Books in 2024.

"The humour, historical awareness and wisdom in Garneau’s seemingly inanimate tableaus – often no more than a rock, a book, and a braid of sweetgrass – shows Garneau to be not just a great artist but a leading voice for change..." —Jury Citation, 2026 Saskatchewan Book Awards Publishing Prize“A smart collection of art and essays, Dark Chapters activates deep conversations about art, resistance, and sovereignty. Visiting with paintings by Métis artist David Garneau, seventeen poets, curators, and thinkers offer complex provocations that trouble and activate new forms of communities and relationships.” —Dr. Carmen Robertson, Canada Research Chair in North American Indigenous Visual and Material Culture“Provocative, probing, and precarious, Dark Chapters pairs the poetic, literary, political, and critical responses of seventeen authors with the deceptively uncluttered yet gravid and combustible still lifes of David Garneau. This collection of pictures and words undertakes a necessary examination of the uncanny oppositions and disquieting literal and symbolic inversions that signify and animate the Indigenous history of Canada.” —Bonnie Devine“Dark Chapters is a lesson in relationality and innovation. Built through conversations between Garneau’s work and artists/writers, the intergenerational contributors to this book come together in relation to Garneau and his still lives to explore the important contribution the artist has made to Canadian, Indigenous, and International art.” —Erin Sutherland

• ForewordNic WilsonStill LifeJohn G. HamptonStone and Rock: I Have Failed YouPeter MorinWander CarriedCecily NicholsonOn KinshipPaul SeesequasisLearning from Indigenous Academic SolidarityJeff DerksenKnock KnockLillian AllenUnsettling the Colonial GazeTrevor HerriotSmudge Before Reading and The Land Does Not ForgetTarene ThomasConfession (after David Garneau) by Rita BouvierFuse and Formal and Informal EducationJesse WenteThe Problem with PleasureBilly-Ray BelcourtMétis Realism: On the Materiality of Smoke and Relationality of RocksDavid HowesAllies (after Hsieh and Montano)Larissa LaiAlly Tear ReliquaryArin FayUnderstanding Attempted Enlightening: Between Language as Power…and Light as LifeDick AvernsSpineFred WahThe Resting Heartbeat of a Wounded BirdSusan MusgraveGalleryAbout the ArtistAbout the CuratorAbout the EditorAbout the ContributorsList of ArtworksIndex