Dark Chapters is the title of David Garneau’s exhibition of still-life paintings at the Yukon Arts Centre in Whitehorse. These acrylic paintings are also part of a larger project, a book of the same name that the University of Regina Press published in 2025. On entering the main gallery at the Yukon Arts Centre, we encounter still life paintings selected from the book project, and on the walls beside about a third of the works are long texts. These word-based explorations, from invited writers, creates a dialogue with the paintings. Garneau lays out his conceptual process in his artist’s statement. 

He begins with concepts and then works directly with objects that will represent his ideas, such as skulls, stones, rocks,¹ jute twine, drapery, books and so on. He describes his artworks as a dialogue with objects in which he questions how they should be placed. His interaction with these found objects that like sculpture have a significance; thus, he draws from his personal history when he stages his photographs as studies for his paintings. 

The paintings, rendered meticulously in acrylic, are mostly photo-realistic, although some of them display a drawing-like sensibility that doesn’t quite become photorealism. The Métis sash or ceinture fléchée in Métis Packing for an Academic Award (2024) provides one example of this: the hard-edged simplicity of the sash colours are amplified, giving it an exaggerated impact over realism. Despite

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