luke Parnell
swim,spawn,repeat

Luke Parnell (Guxw Gahlgan - always carving) is Wilp Laxgiik Nisga’a (eagle) from Gingolx on his mother’s side and Haida from Massett on his Father’s side. His training has involved a traditional apprenticeship with a Master Northwest Coast Indigenous carver, a BFA from OCAD, and an MAA from ECUAD. He has been a carver for over 20 years and though his primary medium is wood, his materiality is determined on a project by project basis. His artistic practice explores the relationship between Northwest Coast Indigenous oral histories and Northwest Coast Indigenous art, with a focus on transformation narratives. With an understanding of visual language as a material expression related to experience, Parnell’s artworks contain traditional and contemporary symbols, where meaning is related to the materials, methods, forms, and context of the works.

Parnell’s work has been exhibited at the MacLaren Art Centre, the National Gallery of Canada, the Biennial of Contemporary Native Art in Montreal, the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, the Art Gallery of Ontario among others. He has been an artist-in-residence at the Banff Centre and the International Cervantino Festival. His first solo exhibition at MKG127, Indigenous History in Colour, traveled on to the Bill Reid Art Gallery in Vancouver in 2021 and the Art Gallery of Ontario acquired seven paintings from the exhibition. For his first Reconciliation Day in office on September 30, 2025,  Prime Minister Mark Carney spoke about borrowing Luke’s work, A Brief History of North West Coast Design from the National Gallery of Canada to install outside the cabinet room in the west block of Parliament.

Artwork courtesy of MKG127