The Native (1989)

One of Kennedy’s explorations into paint colour names, The Native works (1989-2000)—including paintings on walls, canvas, and construction-grade chipboard—employ a selection of paints with names derived from colonial interpretations of North American Indigenous cultures. Around the same time, Kennedy began many multiple works which centred paint colour names, including An American History Painting (The Complete List of Pittsburgh Paints Historic Colour Series) (1989-2000) and The Middle East (1992-2003).

In work notes from 1995, Kennedy expanded on the series:

The Native (A Room Painting) (Cold City Gallery, Toronto, 1989): “I selected from the samples of eleven domestic paint companies seventy-four different colours of interior latex flat paint. They had in common names derived from North and South aboriginal cultures...Using a roller I made seventy-four paintings of about two feet square. They followed a line (above eye level) which traveled throughout the gallery. Accompanying the installation was a booklet listing the colours, their manufacturers and a checklist of the paintings as they appear on the wall in alphabetical order.” 

The Native (Painting on Canvas) (1990): "With the paint left over from The Native (A Room Painting) (above), I made a striped painting which followed the same multi-layered system used in all my other striped paintings: the whole canvas was covered in three coats of the first colour, Adobe, then the first stripe was taped-off (on a diagonal that follows the direction of the weave of the canvas) before the second colour, Adobe Moss, covered the canvas. The process was continued until the last stripe (the 74th), Wigwam, finished the painting. Sometime later, however, I exchanged the colour Wigwam with Indian River Red making the painting much brighter. Also, later, a tiny cross-section was sliced from the edge of the painting to make a coloured photograph, The Native (A Cross-Section). The photo was taken by Lesley Johnson in the Owens Art Gallery Conservation Laboratory." 

The Native (Twenty Indian Paintings) (1994): "In the centre of twenty, two-foot square pieces of chipboard I drew the outline of the same shape that I used earlier to paint The Middle East (75 Paintings on Canvas)...an enlargement of a two-inch colour swatch of a brushstroke from Pittsburgh Paints promotional material. Using the first (Indian Bead) of the twenty colours from The Native with the word Indian in them, I painted only those chips that the outline of the swatch passed through—making a spikey, ring-like shape (figure). I then painted the background with the second colour (Indian Blue). On the second painting I used Indian Blue as the figure and another Indian Blue as the background. This system continued through the twenty paintings with the last painting having its figure painted with Indian Yellow and its ground returning to the first colour, Indian Bead...The chips were painted several coats individually with a brush. They are presented, butted next to each other, to from one painting—10' x 8'."

— Garry Neill Kennedy, Garry Neill Kennedy: Wall Paintings & Related Works 1974-1995, pg.147-148