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Terrance Houle is an internationally recognized interdisciplinary media
artist and a member of the Blood Tribe. Involved with Aboriginal
communities all his life, he has traveled to reservations throughought North
America participating in Powwow dancing and other native ceremonies. It is
Houle's life experiences that drive his work. With an ongoing exploration
of who he is as it relates to the society he lives in, Houle utilizes at his
discretion performance, photography, video/film and painting. Likewise
Houle's practice includes tools of mass dissemination such as billboards and
Vinyl bus signage.
Like many young contemporary artists, Houle examines social and economic
notions. Devoid of agenda, Houle sets out to create happenings or scenarios
where the unfamiliar occurrence is juxtaposed with commonplace environments,
thereby snapping a larger idea into a pin-pointed focus. Not to be mistaken
as autobiographical, it is Houle's intention to provoke. Cultural identity,
alienation, assimilation, and Hollywood stereo-types are just a few of the
notions that immediately call to mind when viewing Houle's art. Yet it is
through his elegant imagery and performance, combined with levity, that
Houle provides his onlookers the opportunity to move through a process of
reconsidering their own personnel associations of who they are in relation
to their environments.
A graduate of the Alberta College of Art and Design, Terrance Houle received
his B.F.A in 2003. His ground-breaking art quickly garnered him significant
accolades and opportunities, including the 2003 invitation to participate in
the Thematic Residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts in. This Residency
focused on 34 international indigenous people exploring issues of
colonization and communion. Houle received the 2006 Enbridge Emerging Artist Award
presented at the Mayors Luncheon for the Arts, City Of Calgary. After
receiving many screenings of his short video / film work at the Toronto 2004
ImagineNATIVE Film Festival, Houle was awarded winner of Best Experimental
Film. His work has been exhibited across Canada, Parts of the United States,
Australia and England. Often collaborating with artists, particularly
Jarusha Brown, Terrance Houle lives and maintains his art practice in
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
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