Violet Gatensby
Violet Gatensby is a Tlingit artist and a member of the Carcross/Tagish First Nation. Her teacher was the well-known artist Dempsey Bob.1)
Gatensby was awarded the 2016 YVR youth scholarship and the opportunity to showcase a piece of art at the Vancouver airport for a year. Her artwork is a carved and painted round panel that features a raven with water drops near its mouth depicting a traditional creation story.2)
Gatensby’s 2022 painting Forget Me Not was the first work of art to be displayed in a Yukon courtroom. It depicts a matriarchal society with flowers covering the cracks that represent those who were lost at the Carcross residential school and the missing and all murdered women and girls in a larger sense. Gatensby said that the flowers represent growing back from hardship and hopes that the artwork helps Indigenous people feel seen and supported in the courtroom.3)
In 2023, Gatensby created the artwork called Resilient Hearts Insightful Vision for the Yukon 125 commemorative medals.4) Gatensby used the powerful medicine of the balsam branch in the formline design to send a message that we can heal together.5)