b'Artist StatementLove Bears offers a resolution to theinherentcontradictionthat involves accepting both the light and dark sides of our humanness.-Peopleoftenaskmehowmy Haidalineageinformsmycontemporary practice.The answer is that I am the product of a colo-nialpast.Ihaveresisteditand- fought every step of the way.All aspects of authority or superiority make my skin prickle, and I have lived with a feeling of anger most of my life, sometimes,I havent even known why I am so angry, but then all I have to do is look at the way people of difference are treated and it seems justified. My previous work has interrogated popular abuses of power in order to identify the false virtue of repressed anger as it is channelled into socially acceptable,andoftentimes,violentandoppressivehumanbehaviour.I now feel I can offer up some solutions to those problems.Love Bears explores a different kind of power - the power of love and all that -loveencompasses-humility,acceptance,compassionandvulnerability.-These sculptures are a personal story of how I found my way to understanding that true power is not domination and oppression, but compassion and vulnerability.The bears are a metaphor of dark and light.They represent a balancing of masculine and feminine energies; a union of opposites that exist not only between two people but also within each one of us.8'