Inspired by a romance novel I saw in Chapters bookstore, I began a new portrait series at the Indian's new home in Major's Hill Park. I was intrigued by the erotic sensation that the kneeling Indian figure had now acquired, de-contextualized from the original Champlain monument. There was something eerily familiar about him being moved. Although he was still in sight of the Champlain monument he was essentially out of sight, and out of mind. I wondered--why did the Indians always have to move? He had now become an erotic figure, with a romance-novel-like storyline filled with torrid tales of abduction and seduction of white women. |