The presentation of these artists’ works together offers an opportunity to consider the shared values, creative drives and narratives of memory, place and origin that inform both of their artistic practices. Together, these works reflect a sincere and compelling response to place, offering immigrant narratives of first- and second-generation settler Canadians in southern Saskatchewan, while also exploring the influential connections between our province’s folk art and funk art genres.

Frank Cicansky’s work not only reflects his skilled craftsmanship, from his training as a blacksmith and wheelwright in Romania before he immigrated in 1926, but also offers narratives of his experiences of settlement in his new country, in the Wood Mountain area south of Moose Jaw.

“Keep on going” was a common phrase of Frank Cicansky. It spoke of his sheer determination to persevere through life’s many challenges.

Carvings and wooden sculptures of pioneer life depict horses and wagons of threshing teams he would have worked on and the barns and houses he would have built, while the paintings, including a series titled In the Thirties, highlight the hardships of settling in southern Saskatchewan.

Frank’s paintings present an immigrant story of Saskatchewan and it is not an easy one. It is filled with setbacks and disappointment, from crippling drought to unscrupulous dealings and probable racism that Cicansky endured, but it is also a story of perseverance and an identification with this land in which he made it his own.