Seattle Art Fair: Lumen Field Event Center, Seattle, WA

Fazakas Gallery is pleased to present a special exhibition of Atlakim masks by Alan Hunt with assistance from Cole Speck and Aubrey Johnston Jr. at the 2022 iteration of the Seattle Art Fair.

In 2014, Alan Hunt joined Beau Dick' s long time apprentice Cole Speck to learn under the master carver, a relationship that lasted until Dick's death in 2017. Most recently, Hunt was part of the group of apprentices who worked closely with Dick during his Artist-in-Residency at the UBC Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory in his studio in the Audain Art Centre. It was there that Hunt and Speck assisted Dick in the completion of his exhibition for Documenta 14 (2017), which took place in Athens, Greece and Kassel, Germany. Like Beau Dick, Alan Hunt dedicates his practice to the promotion of Kwakwaka'wakw culture. 

The Atłak'ima (Atłak'im), known also as the Dance of the Forest Spirits, is one of the four main dances performed during Kwakwaka'wakw Winter Ceremonials; it tells the story of a boy who gets lost in the woods and is visited by many guiding spirits who teach him virtues.

On February 25, 2020, a version of the Atlakim ceremony was danced on the European continent for the first time. Hereditary Chief Alan Hunt and 12 other members of the community traveled from Alert Bay, BC to Scotland to perform the dance, which came from Chief William Hawkins' Box of Treasures, at the University of Edinburgh in conjunction with "Pine's Eye", an international group exhibition at Talbot Rice Gallery. This iteration of the dance featured 15 new masks carved by Alan Hunt, Cole Speck, and Aubrey Johnston Jr., which are being presented at the Seattle Art Fair this summer.