Moon Drum

About Moon Drum

This contemporary acrylic painting of a moon is by Rick Rivet.

Rick Rivet is a Métis artist who grew up in the Northwest Territories just above the Arctic Circle. He has acquired an international reputation for his eclectic contemporary artwork which offers a poetic, spiritual and historically relevant view of indigenous and Western cultures. Rivet’s painting style is distinctive—a unique blend of dream-like imagery that reflects both his shamanistic heritage and modernist art forms. He counts among his early influences the expressionist work of modernist painters Rauschenberg, Rothko, and Turner.
Moon Drum’s imagery—a white full moon in an indigo coloured night sky captures two symbols that are often deeply interconnected in indigenous cultures. The drum is considered a sacred instrument that is referred to as the ‘heartbeat of Mother Earth’ and is used in ceremony, storytelling and healing. The Moon is believed to govern all female life and also acts as a ‘calendar’ for each lunar cycle used to determine times for important activities like hunting.
Rick Rivet’s palette reflects his Arctic origins—the bright white of the moon pops against the deep blue of the night sky. Curated markings in white—stars and constellations pepper the backdrop. A melange of colours add detail to the lunar surface rendered in soft greens, red and charcoal gray.

“In my art I seek poetic expression – a visual language which uses the visible universe as a metaphor for the invisible, a communication between the world and the spirit, a mystical relationship between physical/metaphysical realities. The context is the human existential journey through the matter/space/time continuum.” Rick Rivet

“Rivet’s grounding in Modernism allows him to explore spirituality and shamanism through abstract expressionist modes that meld traditional Indigenous ideas and symbols with a decidedly contemporary approach to image making.” IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Chief Curator Manuela Well-Off-Man.

Richard James Rivet was born in Aklavik in the Northwest Territories. He grew up on the land, and his family lived by trapping, hunting and fishing. Rivet has four degrees from three universities. He completed his MFA at the University of Saskatchewan in 1989 and began creating art full-time. Rivet has been the recipient of more than twenty awards, scholarships and bursaries, including a Fellowship from the Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis, and the Andy Warhol Foundation Fellowship Residency Program for the Heard Museum in Phoenix. His work is held in private, corporate, and public collections in Canada and the US.