Andrew Trudeau: Drawing Georgian Bay presents a series of drawings by Andrew Trudeau (1924-2013) that illustrate scenes ranging from hand-made boats and scoots to explorations of environmental and animal relationships. The drawings reveal Trudeau’s unique perspective on the world, one informed by the knowledge of his Métis ancestors who relocated to Penetanguishene from Drummond Island in the 1820s and 83-years of living off the land on the remote islands of Georgian Bay.
Trudeau began drawing late in his life, discovering a new way to express himself after moving to Hillcrest Home in Midland. Despite having limited used of his hands, weathered from years of manual labour, he patiently produced an impressive series of graphite and coloured pencil drawings. His renderings depict boats and scoots that he built over the course of his life, as well as imagined machines, designed for flight but never constructed. In other scenes, he depicts the intertwined lives of animals, fish, birds, humans, and the geographies of Georgian Bay all with equal presence, summarizing a lifetime of knowledge acquired on the land and on the water about how to live well together.
A version of this exhibition, Andy Trudeau 1924 – 2012, The Drawings, was originally shown at the Midland Cultural Centre Gallery of Indigenous Art.
To learn more about the exhibition, visit the Midland Cultural Centre’s Gallery of Indigenous Art Website.
MCC Gallery of Indigenous Art
