Indigenous artist Kalum Teke Dan is accustomed to a big stage.  

The canvasses on which the 48-year-old Alberta-based artist paints his murals on have included giant exteriors at the world famous Calgary Stampede, a feature wall in the Calgary Public Library’s lobby and the large glass facade at Norquest College in Edmonton, among others. 

Now Teke Dan will bring his striking, spiritual images to Jasper. 

Thanks to the inaugural UpLift Mural Festival, which takes place April 23-May 8, a new Kalum Teke Dan mural will soon overlook Connaught Drive. 

“This is a big opportunity, to be part of the first year of the festival,” Teke Dan said.

On March 10, together with UpLift co-founders Logan Ireland and Oliver Andrew, Teke Dan was scoping out his newest canvas: the second storey, north-facing wall overlooking the patio at Connaught Drive’s Jasper Pizza Place. To the average passer-by the wall appears as a nondescript, grey, cement building exterior. To Teke Dan, however, the space is brimming with potential.

“It’s great,” he said. “I’m excited to be part of the landscape.”

Teke Dan’s is not the first in his family to be part of Alberta’s artistic landscape. He follows in the brushstrokes of his grandfather, the late Blackfoot artist, Glen EagleSpeaker, who gained international renown in the 1970s and 80s for his beading and traditional art. His family’s success may have helped inspire Teke Dan to pursue painting in the first place, but it was his own determination that earned him an audience. As a 16-year-old growing up with his mom in Calgary, he would go door-to-door with his watercolours, asking whoever opened the door if they were interested in his art.

“I got encouragement,” Teke Dan remembered. “People told me I had a good future.”

Those who predicted his success were correct, but Teke Dan’s remarkable career—one which has gone from hawking his art cards to displaying in exhibitions, to running his own gallery to booking his own shows to painting massive public murals—has not been without its challenges, creative and otherwise. In 2012 Teke Dan was diagnosed with Psoriatic arthritis, a chronic, inflammatory disease of the joints. It got so bad he couldn’t walk. Two years after the diagnosis, the 6’2” Teke Dan weighed only 120 pounds. He was bed-ridden and depressed. He contemplated suicide. Finally, one day, his dedication to his treatment—along with medication, routine callisthenics and exercising—started showing results. Teke Dan’s symptoms abated slightly. He regained feeling in his legs, eventually enough so that he could stand up.

“The signal was starting to come back,” he said.

So too was his passion for painting, which had also sat idle for two years. When Teke Dan told his girlfriend at the time that he was going to win the 2015 Peace Hills Trust Annual Indigenous Art Competition—and then did—his confidence came hurtling back.

“All of a sudden I thought I could do anything,” he said.

That’s perhaps the interpretation one could take by viewing Teke Dan’s most well-known painting, Sunset Song, which portrays a member of the Blood Tribe singing prayers and stories of Blackfoot culture. The colours are vibrant, the lines are striking and the style is a perfect fit for UpLift, which is being billed as a festival which will celebrate diversity, culture and storytelling, along with enhancing the aesthetic of Jasper.

“We want to accentuate the natural beauty of Jasper and provide a platform for people to share their experiences,” Ireland told Jasper Municipal Council on March 8. “The murals will serve as a vehicle for cultures and artists to share their experiences with Jasper.”

That’s an appropriate venue for Teke Dan, who says that ultimately, his work is about sharing the values of a culture he knows wasn’t always portrayed as valuable.

“I’m trying to portray pride,” he said. “My people’s pride was taken away. I want people to feel proud when they see my work.”

Bob Covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com