Juanita Ens
By Clive Holloway
Posted in News, on December 29, 2023
This season, Lattimer Gallery is excited to feature the work of Juanita Ens, an extraordinarily talented multidisciplinary Haida artist who has created an array of beautiful and innovative Northwest Coast stained glass panels. Juanita's professional journey began in 2006 and she quickly earned two consecutive YVR Art Foundation Awards in 2008 and 2009. During this time she refined her skills as a carver in silver, copper, gold, argillite, and wood, and has not slowed down in her embrace of new techniques and mediums since.
Juanita's foray into stained glass began with her move from British Columbia to Ontario, where she found materials she was traditionally acquainted with hard to come by, but materials for stained glass in great abundance. Juanita began taking classes and soon found herself in the midst of a lively community of stained glass artisans:
"I took classes and bought specialized equipment that has allowed me to create formline designs and traditional Haida motifs in a medium that does not normally allow for elongated U forms and fine details."
-Juanita Ens
One of Juanita's most unique and striking works in this medium is her Fungus Man circular panel:
"The Fungus Man piece is based on historical Argillite plates illustrating the part of the Raven travelling story where Raven animates a piece of bracket Fungus to use as his canoe steersman. All the glass used is the same smoky grey colour, however there are multiple textures used in the trees, mushrooms, and a wavy texture to represent the existential event. All the details are hand painted including three different types of mushrooms found on Haida Gwaii."
-Juanita Ens
Juanita plans to continue producing stained glass work, as well as expanding into regalia making, linocut prints, and returning to hand-carved jewellery. We at Lattimer Gallery are honoured to feature Juanita's work and look forward to seeing what she comes up with next!
"The beauty of stained-glass as a medium is every piece will always be completely unique. Each piece has its own swirls and bubbles, lines, and textures. Glass manufacturing is also in flux and certain colors and materials are no longer available adding to the uniqueness of every creation."
-Juanita Ens