Suzanne Gammon
Tribune
As you enter West Nipissing from the west on Hwy 17, the first thing you see is the EnRoute Cannabis store and the site is now adorned with a giant work of art, a visual “welcome” that teases the series of outdoor murals visitors can find elsewhere in the municipality, most notably in downtown Sturgeon Falls.
The gigantic mural, painted on a vinyl tarp, covers the entire western façade of the business’ 80-foot Quonset hut and can’t be missed as people drive by. It is the work of award-winning Aboriginal artist Odinamaad Isaac Narciso (Isaac) Weber, now based in the Sudbury region. EnRoute owner Alain Gaudrault says he was put in contact with Weber through an employee, and the two discussed a vision for the project. The mural depicts a sunrise over a green field of cannabis plants, with a highway cutting through and a sign marked EnRoute 420 – a humorous nod to the business. The pastel colours bleeding into the blue sky blend into the surrounding sky, for a visually appealing effect.
Weber says the final product is just what they had in mind. “We wanted a depiction that highlighted the typical aspects of the area: big skies, pastures… It came together,” he says. After a few discussions with Gaudrault, he notes that their goals were to “illustrate the beauty of the environment there” and also to incorporate the product, cannabis leaves, which “radiate out” as part of the natural landscape.
The planning began over the summer, then the painting took place in October. “We had to get done before it got too cold,” otherwise the paint would not dry, explains the artist. It was a huge undertaking, but shockingly, he says it only took a day and a half to finish the actual painting, for which he also credits his apprentice Nicholas Waiwa as “a great help obviously. (…) We did it pretty fast.”
The gigantic mural was actually not the biggest painting Weber has worked on over the years. The accomplished artist has collaborated on larger pieces in the past. Starting as a graffiti artist, he has commissioned and non-commissioned pieces in various parts of the world – one of his more recent in Noëlville, which caught the eye of the EnRoute Cannabis employee and led to the latest project. After living in Holland and Southern Ontario for several years, studying at a prestigious Dutch art school and then OCAD University, forming and creating as part of a Native arts collective, Weber felt the pull to return to his First Nation community of Henvey Inlet, near Sudbury, where he hopes to further develop his innovative painting style.
“It’s sort of like neo-woodland style. I’m part of a younger generation of Indigenous artists with their own take on older woodland.” He also draws inspiration from graffiti art and his mixed African and Ojibway background, making for an interesting blend of influences and a truly original approach. He says he incorporates nature and animals “to remind us of our environment and wildlife around us, that’s important to me.”
