Daron Letts
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Sep 16/05) - Dene artist Antoine Mountain paints in a cozy cottage shaded by a yellow canopy of foliage in Old Town.

He finished his latest work, an acrylic on canvas titled Ghost Shadow, before heading North to hunt moose this weekend. The painting expresses Mountain's spiritual respect for the land and the life it supports. A wolf fills the magenta canvas.

Artist Antoine Mountain completed his most recent painting, Ghost Shadow, earlier this week.

Ears perked, the animal stares past the viewer with piercing orange eyes that capture a sense of wild intensity. The bristling guard hairs atop its shoulders are frosted with blues, yellows, oranges and browns, as if catching the light of a brilliant sunset.

Mountain blends the impressionistic techniques he studied at Toronto's Ontario College of Art with the subtle symbolism of peekaboo art. Two ravens and a caribou circle the wolf's face, tucked against its cheeks and brow.

"The land tells a story, like this painting," he said. "It's a matter of reading the signs."

Hunters - and other predators on the land - recognize the raven as a sign that game is near.

"Ravens go where caribou go," he said.

In another painting, Mountain wraps the Northern Lights around an image of a warrior on horseback. The beams of light form a long feathered lance. He titles it The Rayuka Warrior, after the Dogrib word used to describe the movement of the Northern Lights.

Mountain is building his collection for an exhibition at NorArt Gallery this winter. He will also paint on site at the gallery from Sept. 22 - Oct. 12.