Pacific Northwest Masks

Powerful Spirits, Exquisite Craftsmanship
Beautiful Carving

We carry masks created by a number of master carvers from up and down Vancouver Island. Our stock is always changing, so no matter how often you come in to visit us at The Judy Hill Gallery, there will always be something new to see.

Click on small photos to enlarge.

The Canadian Encyclopedia has this to say about Southern BC First Nations Carving:

"Painting and relief carving in the Coast Salish area is geometric - circles, chevrons, crescents, rows of dots, triangles and T-shapes. In recent years, scholars have noticed that these elements revealed a negative (recessed) formline-type design which is considered by some to be possibly ancestral to the northern formline tradition. Strong, simplified human and animal sculptures - house pots, coffins, grave posts and a single-mask type, the protruding-eye Sxayxway - were also made. The Southern tradition barely survived into the 20th century, although it too has enjoyed a revival since the 1970s."

See some Haida Masks pictured at the Canadian Heritage Website