This mural was designed and painted by Phil Cote with the assistance of Mel Coleman.
Joeeda is a story about a giant that came to help the people in what is now known as Southern Ontario.
(See image for more details)
Quadtriptych 60” x 144” (four panels of 60” x 36”)
Acrylic on canvas
2024
BEYOND CONCRETE
Standing four storeys tall and stretching 6.5 kilometres across Toronto’s downtown core, the Gardiner Expressway is an imposing piece of infrastructure. At first glance, you might notice the concrete, steel, and the traffic above, but what if you look closer… and listen deeper?
With its vast, seemingly infinite columns that snake their way across the central waterfront, some have said the Gardiner resembles a canyon.* In this urban canyon pigeons roost; foxes dash by stealthily; resilient opportunistic plants insist on growing; water, wind, and salt compete with concrete as principal materials. Even trash plays an unexpected role: not only as a form of litter we see all too often, but as the essential foundation for the human-built infill the highway stands on.
During this summer season, visitors encountered an otherworldly creature that coiled around the Expressway, illustrating the tangled relationship between waste and wildlife; saw the highway anew through photographs developed in collaboration with the soil and water; listened to the wind and appreciated its power in shaping our cities; participated in a speculative history of the Gardiner featuring plants and animals from across deep time; congregated with local birds and insects and saw the city’s urban development from their perspective; experienced lichen up close and learned how it models new ways of being in relationship with our infrastructure, and one another.
For more details, please refer to the project links. I assisted specifically with the projects linked here, among many installations.
Balete Bulate Bituka
by Leeroy New
https://thebentway.ca/event/balete-bulate-bituka/
Multi species Lounge
by Double Happiness a collective including
Architects and educators Joyce Hwang and Nerea Feliz
https://thebentway.ca/event/multispecies-lounge/
Bentempus Gardinus: A Long Exposure Ecological Portrait
by Alex Sheriff
https://thebentway.ca/event/bentempus-gardinus/
Atmospheres
by Public Visualization Lab/Studio
https://thebentway.ca/event/atmospheres/
Woodland Toronto Zoo Mural
The woodland painting, located just outside of The Americas pavilion at the Toronto Zoo, represents Mother Earth and the Indigenous teachings of how important animals are to human beings.
Artist: Phil Cote
Here is a link to the ceremony:
“USW District 6 is honoured to display Indigenous artist Philip Cote’s mural, The Original Family, at the district’s main office in Toronto.
Thank you to Philip Cote and Mel Coleman, who assisted the artist on this project, for this beautiful mural that will be appreciated and admired for years to come.”
https://usw.ca/the-original-family-mural/
Phil Cote:
https://tecumsehcollective.wixsite.com/philipcote
The Original Family
It is a depiction of one of our oldest stories, The Ojibway/Anishinaabe Creation Story which was brought down through oral traditions and pictographic images painted on birch-bark scrolls. This mural is in my own Contemporary Style of Woodland Painting and begins with The First Man and The First Woman and their sacred union and the beginning of The Creation Story.
It is said that The First Man (Waynaboozhoo) came down from the sky and was lowered and the first thing he did was to travel across the land and began naming everything, all the plants, all the trees, all the animals, all the insects, all the fish, and all the birds, etc. The Ojibway/Anishinaabe Elders say this is where our naming ceremony came from and this is also where our Ojibway/Anishinaabe language comes from. This is why all the animals have gathered around The First Man and The First Woman as a reminder of how our story is closely connected to all life on Earth.
The next thing The First Man is asked to do by The Creator is to travel to the Fire Keeper in the East and learn about The Sacred Fire and all its connections to the heart and to the Universe and in doing so he meets the Fire Keeper’s Daughter who we now know as The Morning Star. It is their sacred union that is the beginning of humanity here on Turtle Island.
The otter is the helper who brought the teachings of the four directions and knowledge of what we know today as the Medicine Wheel Teachings. The deer represents the hoofed beings and the teacher of the forest and the teacher of the children. The birds are reminders of spiritual connections to our hearts (our Sacred Fire) and to the Universe. The raven is here to remember the trickster and that not everything can always go as planned, the wolf represents the brother of first man, the buffalo is regarded as a nation in the animal kingdom and the beaver becomes a symbol of wisdom and creator of our water system in North America, the turtle is leader of the fish clan but also a symbol of Turtle Island, and the marten is the sign of the warrior clan and protector of the nation. Last is the bear, a reminder that we are in changing times of which our prophets predicted as The Seven Fires Prophecy.
The prophets also gave us teachings about The Eighth Fire, a time we are now in. It is said that in this time our stories and ancient wisdom will come to the surface and be shared with the western peoples and a new beginning will happen called The Eighth Fire. A new people will emerge together with our nation and it will become the most powerful nation and this marks the beginning of The Golden Age. There is a symbol on the faces of the animals its paw like and represents the trail of life and the animal kingdom. Last but most importantly is the story about the beginning of the universe.
The Anishinaabe have occupied this land for tens of thousands of years, creating a land-based pedagogy to communicate with the flora and fauna and beyond to the stars.
The woodland designs are deeply connected to the creation story of the Anishinaabe as this design with all its black lines speaks about the beginning of the Universe. There are designs within the animals that represent the two worlds – the physical and spiritual – and the heart can be seen running through the middle of these two worlds representing “Heart Thinking” – our way of navigating between these worlds is the best way to live in order to leave a legacy for future generations.
In the beginning there was a Great Black Void and in that void there was a spirit who sent out thoughts into the Universe. When no response happened, those thoughts were called back and the spirit-being said, “Create light in the Universe as you come back to me.” All the stars were born and from them planets were formed. At that moment we had light and dark in the Universe, for Anishinaabe people believe we are all made of light and dark, the physical and the spiritual –that’s where the phrase comes from, “We are all related.”
Philip H. Cote, MFA
Young Spiritual Elder
Artist, Activist, Sacred Knowledge Keeper & Historian
This Mural was completed in 2022 for Quadreel Property Group in partnership with Arts Etobicoke.
Design by Nelly Torossian
https://nellytorossian.wixsite.com/mysite
Painted by Mel Coleman
Design by Philip Cote 2021
MCVA worked in partnership with Will Lazos and his team of artists.
240 Roncesvalles Toronto
Design by Philip Cote
MCVA worked in partnership with Will Lazos and his team of artists.
https://ago.ca/agoinsider/scrolls-reclamation
The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health | CAMH 2020
Design by Rebecca Baird, Toronto, ON
MCVA worked in partnership with Will Lazos and his team of artists.
https://www.camh.ca/en/camh-news-and-stories/all-my-relations
Design by Amanda Mc Cavour
With Mural Form
Harbourfront Centre, Toronto
2021
Design by Phill Cote
With
Will Lazos Team
439 Dundas St E, Toronto, ON M5A 2B1
Design by Philip Cote 2020
MCVA worked in partnership with Will Lazos and his team of artists.
Philip Cote, who is Shawnee, Lakota, Potawatomi, Ojibway and Algonquin, designed artwork this summer for the new Radio-Canada building in Montreal.
The painting depicts a maple tree with animals in the popular Woodland style.
"The maple tree represents that fiery colour when fall comes," said Cote, from Deer Moose Point First Nation in Ontario.
"It reminded me of a fire. So my first thought was, I'm going to create an Indigenous understanding of life."
Legacy in Motion, Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Toronto (CCCGT), 5183 Sheppard Ave E, Scarborough
Lead Artist: Rob Matejka, experienced mural artist and long-time Mural Routes instructor.
Assistant Artists: Leyland Adams, Joefrey Anthony Cabalu, Mel Coleman, Banafsheh Erfanian, Siddarth Khaire, Raoul Olou, Menelik Powell, Kareen Odd.
This mural was designed and created from May 15th to July 15th, 2018 as a SPARK project of the Cultural Hotspot, produced in partnership with the City of Toronto and supported by a StreetARToronto Partnership Program grant.
Carpet Factory Restoration, 74 Fraser Ave, Liberty Village, Toronto
Spring 2018
Lead Artist: Will Lazos www.williamlazos.com
Assistant Artists: Mel Coleman, Amandeep Singh Gill and Bryan Taguba
Mural Design by Phill Cote
MCVA worked in partnership with Will Lazos and his team of artists.
It is located at the University of Toronto Campus within the Royal Chapel at Massey College and was completed in 2017.
This series of eight murals can be found at the National Holocaust Monument in Ottawa, Canada. It was completed in 2017.
https://holocaustmonument.ca
MCVA worked in partnership with Will Lazos and his team of artists.
http://www.williamlazos.com
The designs are photographs by Edward Burtynsky.
https://www.edwardburtynsky.com
The architect for the project was Daniel Lipeskind.
https://libeskind.com
