Thunderbeing
Roxanne Charles's artwork on the library at Clayton Community Centre honours her late great-grandfather.
Artist: Roxanne Charles
Location: Clayton Community Centre, Library (7155 187A Street)
Category: Civic collection
Year Installed: 2022
About Thunderbeing
This playful work brings to life the spirit of the Thunderbird, an important aspect of Salish culture. To gain the spirit of the Thunderbird involved immense dedication and training to promote transformation and personal growth. This work honours Charles’s late great-grandfather who was said to possess the spirit of the Thunderbird. This vinyl wrap design can be seen on a three-panelled window of a meeting room in Clayton Community Centre's library.
About the Artist
Roxanne Charles is a mixed media artist, curator, storyteller, and cultural historian of Strait Salish and European descent. She is an active band member of Semiahmoo First Nation. As an artist, she works with a wide range of media using traditional Semiahma forms of knowledge such as visual representation, oral history, and ceremony. Charles’s practice directly responds to the problems of colonialism and documents issues that reflect her life experience. Her work is held in private collections and in the collection of Surrey Art Gallery. Charles has numerous public artworks throughout the Lower Mainland, including one at École Salish Secondary School in Surrey.
