Truth Image Goes Viral: Kingston Artist Portia Po Chapman’s Indigenous Illustration for Queen’s University

Truth Image Goes Viral:
Kingston Artist Portia Po Chapman’s Indigenous Illustration for Queen’s University

The “Truth” image went viral during the week leading up to Canada’s first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, Sept. 2021. Across Canada, the image was featured with an orange background. In this post, Po expands upon the image and how it’s popularity took off during that week, click here. The truth image was one of 10 Indigenous Themed icons that Po was commissioned to illustrate Indigenous “Ways of Knowing” for the Queen’s University Office of Indigenous Initiatives website in 2020.

Since then, the icons from the collection decorate and honour a multitude of Queen’s University documents and events. When Po created the icons, the brief was to create something similar to the University of Saskatchewan images. The brief that she was given went a step further, “but one-of-a-kind.” The commissioning committee wanted Po to create illustrations that distinguished Queen’s University from all other Universities. So, in short, the brief was like having one’s cake and being able to eat it too. To paraphrase the brief, one could say: “illustrate icons like U of S, but make them nothing like U of S.”

When Po offered her idea of creating circular icons, like buttons, that could be easily used across the University platforms, it was a NEW concept. Contemporary graphic circular Indigenous Illustrations were, in general, not being used by other Universities, so there was really no comparison at the time. It can be argued that if one sees circular, graphic icons like the ones the Queen’s University has, it was because Po and the OII created them first.

The icons also featured Po’s circular composition and artistic style that is inspired by wild grapevine silhouettes cast by the bright noonday sun.

It was quite the day, September 30, 2021, for Po who was inundated with a multitude of requests to use the “Truth” image because the public, somehow, began to view it as the new Orange Shirt Day for the “Every Child Matters” campaign. With each call, Po referred the people to the Queen’s OII because they commissioned the image.

Now that 3 National Days for Truth and Reconciliation have passed (Queen’s Gazette ), it seems that the public have adopted the image as another representation of Truth and Reconciliation during Orange Shirt Day. Here are some links to examples of where the image has been shared and/or published:
Women’s Shelter
Girl Guides of Canada
York School Board
Pickering College
Municipality of Dundurn
Newmarket Mayor’s Office
Fringe Toronto
Queens Arc
Queens Law

Po’s contemporary art style and circular imagery has been growing more popular since Queen’s University published the images on the OII website. This past September 2023 the Broadview Press Indigenous Philosophies of Turtle Island Anthology: Ways of Being in the World featured her artwork. The editor from Oklahoma , Andrea Sullivan-Clarke and University of Windsor professor contacted Po because of the Queen’s Page. Also a Salish construction and land development company (the branding has not yet been made public, so the images have net yet been publicly released for public viewing) commissioned Po to do their new logo and branding imagery based upon the “Elder in Residence” image from the Queen’s Faculty of Education Indigenous Initiatives.