Thurber inducts ’99 grad, Cree Métis artist Jesse Gouchey into Hall of Fame

Gouchey gave a speech in front of the next batch of grads, some of whom helped him over the last couple days to commission a new mural that will go up in the school.

He calls the honour special, praised the school’s young artists, and remembers both spending a lot of time in art class and in a skateboarding area outside back in his day at Thurber.

“I hope that in a community like Red Deer where there isn’t much Indigenous representation, that what students and people take away from my art is a little bit of Indigenous pride. There’s a huge Indigenous history here, but it’s not something I grew up with, so I’d like my art to shed light on that which isn’t talked about enough,” Gouchey told reporters.

“We are on Indigenous land and it’s important to give more acknowledgment to the past, as well as the people who are from this area who are no longer around.”

Gouchey’s art can be found in outdoor and indoor spaces around Red Deer, plus Alberta and western Canada. He has a good number of pieces in Calgary, in particular.

He also has a history of unique stop-motion filmmaking, first teaming up with co-director Xstine Cook to create a piece called Spirit of the Bluebird. It screened at TIFF, Imagenative, on APTN, and at 100 film festivals worldwide in 2011 and 2012, winning several awards. The short documentary featured the story of an Indigenous woman who faced injustice and was murdered in 1999.

Most recently, Gouchey did a mural animation project in 2021 and 2022 entitled Johnny Crow, again with Xstine Cook; it speaks to historical oppression and racial injustice to Indigenous peoples. The film was circulated at many international film festivals, also taking home several awards.

by Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

Thurber inducts ’99 grad, Cree Métis artist Jesse Gouchey into Hall of Fame

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