Iconographer full#

Paul’s, especially so Indigenous people living there would “feel welcome and at home in the Church.” He did not have an icon of St. He wanted Indigenous Catholic icons at St. Paul’s Catholic Churches in Vancouver, told the Register that he had met Prevost previously in Alberta. His career painting First Nations icons began when he moved to North Vancouver, and Father Garry LaBoucane, of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, made a request for “icons from a First Nations perspective.”įather LaBoucane, who is a Métis elder and pastor of Sacred Heart and St. Prevost originally began writing icons in the 1980s for Ukrainian Catholics in Alberta, Canada.

Massive conversions to the faith took place after his martyrdom, laying the eventual groundwork for the Catholic faith to be brought by Wendat Catholics to the Five Nations of the Haudenosaunee, also known as the Iroquois. The beaded satchel he carries refers to the relics of the saints he brought with him on a canoe trip from Quebec to the Wendat Catholic community. The cross Chiwatenhwa holds refers to the fate of martyrdom he saw in visions before his death and the Catholic faith he brought to his people. Prevost made pains to make sure Chiwatenhwa was depicted as a 17th-century Wendat (Huron) Catholic, whose regalia reflected his membership in the Wendat nation’s Bear Clan. John Paul II singled out Chiwatenhwa and his wife, Marie Aonetta, in 1984 for their evangelization and living out the faith in a “heroic manner.” Ignatius and was known by contemporaries as the “Apostle with the Apostles.” St.

Iconographer full#

Kateri Tekakwitha venerated by the North American Jesuit martyrs - gazes back at the viewer with firm conviction, muscular strength and passionate intensity: Joseph Chiwatenhwa (1602-1640), whose evangelization of the Huron Confederacy was so great in the three years between his baptism and death in 1640 that he had completed the full 30-day Spiritual Exercises of St. The most challenging icon composed in Prevost’s studio - an important forerunner to St. Getting the culture right for each icon is a monumental challenge. And people need to connect to that,” he says. “People need to see Christ is part of their humanity.

And reflecting saints in one’s culture, or seeing saints from their own culture, is key in that. The iconographer’s first responsibility, Prevost explains, is to draw a person into prayer.

The artist began writing icons for Eastern Churches, and, today, he almost exclusively paints icons for First Nations Catholics, illustrating not only their spiritual insights, but also revealing their heroes of holiness that are or that could one day be canonized. Icons have also been used as a teaching device to tell biblical stories or the truths of the faith. Icons are a form of early religious art from the Eastern Churches often depicting holy men and women for devotional purposes, with iconographers using various conventions to indicate Jesus Christ, Mary or the saints.

What makes Prevost’s work distinctive is that he paints Catholic icons according to the specific cultures of the nations and tribes indigenous to North America, the living roots of the Catholic Church in Canada and the U.S. “And then I can pray directly with the icon,” Prevost tells the Register.