Fonds 63 - Lyle Wilson fonds

Lyle Wilson, a Haisla artist, was born in 1955 at Butedale, British Columbia. He grew up in the northern coastal communities of Kitimat and Kitimat Village. Wilson grew up watching his uncle, Sam Robinson, create carvings out of wood, and he later became a skilled carver and artist himself. In his explorations of art, Wilson brings together his fine-arts training and knowledge of Western European art history with his understanding of Haisla art and tradition and experiments with a range of media. In addition to the carvings he creates out of wood, horn and ivory, Wilson also creates metalwork, jewelry, drawings, and paintings.

Wilson attended the Emily Carr School of Art and Design and the University of British Columbia in the 1980s, where he was educated in European art traditions. At UBC Wilson was exposed to a wealth of Northwest Coast First Nations’ art. He studied artifacts, photographs of artifacts, and learned from practicing artists. He worked as a Project Consultant in the development of the Canadian Museum of Civilization’s Grand Hall exhibition and was an artist-in-residence at the UBC Museum of Anthropology. Wilson has worked on commissions and exhibited his work both locally in Vancouver as well as internationally in Osaka, Japan and New York.