Jason Titian

• Nuu-chah-nulth

Born and raised in Port Alberni in 1974, Jason Titian is a member of the Ahousat First Nation. He showed an interest in art at an early age, and one of his first teachers was Ron Hamilton, well known Nuu-chah-nulth ethnographer and artist.

In 2001 Titian approached Tsimshian/Nuu-chah-nulth artist Ray Sim Sr. and asked him to be his teacher. Sim, who had trained at the Kitanmaax School of Northwest Coast Indian Art (K’san), taught him the principles of formline – the primary design element of Northwest coast art. To this day, Titian still considers Sim his primary teacher and his mentor.

In 2006 Jason Titian studied for one year with Morris “Moy” Sutherland, who encouraged the young artist to expand his knowledge of Nuu-chah-nulth traditional art. Other well known artists who have influenced Titian are Joe David and Robert Davidson.

Titian is part of the younger generation of Nuu-chah-nulth artists who follow in the footsteps of great names such as the late Art Thompson, and Tom Paul, who studied with his father Tim Paul. But beyond the telling of well known stories, Titian aspires to new interpretations of the older artistic traditions.
The culture and traditional values of his Native heritage were an important part of Jason Titian’s upbringing, and they continue to play an important role in his life. Through the materials provided to him by the natural world, he gives expression to those values, and his artistic achievements are a statement of his First Nations identity.