There’s a certain type of magic that gets sparked when two people enter into a creative pairing. Stephen Spielberg and John Williams, Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, Dolce and Gabbana—they all have the kind of lasting creative companionship that’s made an indelible mark on art, globally. 

Adding another name—or rather another two names—to the creative duos making a tangible impact on culture is Studio Lauren James.

The collaborative studio is the namesake of Squamish carver James Nexw’Kalus-Xwalacktun Harry and Japanese-Trindian multi-disciplinary artist Lauren Brevner. The pair is responsible for a few pieces of public art in Vancouver that tell stories about the land it’s on—the latest of which is a 40-foot sculpture called Sínulhḵay now standing tall at the intersection of West Broadway and Granville Street.

The landmark is at the entrance of Stories at South Granville Station—a 39-storey mixed-use high-rise with retail, office and rental housing integrated into it. 

The sculpture is a foundational pillar of The Stories at South Granville Station – a new 39-storey mixed-use, transit-integrated, high-rise retail, office and rental housing development by PCI Developments and the TD Greystone Real Estate Strategy.

Named after a supernatural double-headed serpent that is part of a shared origin story of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, xʷməθkʷəy̓əm and səlilwətaɬ Nations, the Coast Salish Sínulhḵay sculpture greets residents and visitors as they enter and exit the city.

“Sínulhḵay had been boring tunnels underneath Vancouver so we started talking about these subway stations as portals that Sínulhḵay had been boring through,” says Harry. “Bringing a lot of the ancient history back to these new modern builds was really appropriate, especially given the other sites that they’re really trying to bring in a lot of more Coast Salish stories across multiple sites in Vancouver.”

Other landmarks that Harry has his mark on include the Welcome Gate at Sp’akw’us Feather Park in Squamish, UBC’s Tribute Pole and, previously, another Sínulhḵay collaboration between him and Brevner—a mural on a now-demolished building on the Arbutus Greenway. 

The original Sínulhḵay collaboration was a mural on a now-demolished building on the Arbutus Greenway.

The ethos of bringing Coast Salish art to the city is instilled in him from his father, Xwalacktun, a master Coast Salish carver from the Squamish Nation.

“[My dad is] one of the only artists from Coast Salish culture to put the step forward to be say, ‘We’re only going to do Coast Salish art from now on,’ because other artists from all across British Columbia were doing what people know more as formline, which is more well-known across across the world,” he explains.

Formline is a popularized Indigenous art style that aligns more closely with Haida, Tlingit and Tsimshian peoples, but became a global catch-all for “Canadian Indigenous” art.

“There was a really amazing market for this type of work, so families even from the Squamish Nation, when technically we’re Coast Salish, were practicing artwork that wasn’t from here because that’s what the market demanded. He knew that before, and he was trying [to create Coast Salish-specific art] even when it wasn’t popular to do it, he was doing it. I think that’s where I’ve really had the upper hand in understanding what this dichotomy should be like. We’re here on Coast Salish territory. We should only be doing Coast Salish art to bring back that identity.”

James Harry carving small-scale models in the couple’s shared home office-studio. Photo Credit: Madison Edwards.

But while Harry and his family are working to reshape Vancouver through the revival of an art style that represents home, it’s not without reinvention—and that’s where the cross-cultural collaboration between him and Brevner comes in.

“There was this intersection between Japanese culture and Indigenous culture and it was really interesting to run parallels with what happens. When you go to Japan, their culture is just everywhere: it’s integrated into the architecture, their artwork, their literature, just their entire identity,” Harry exclaims. 

The carver was the first to reach out to Brevner to propose working together, saying their art styles showed off a similar design language.

“James had looked at my paintings because I did portraits, and it was just the forms and the dresses [that caught his eye]. There’s an overlap between our two design languages, [but at that time] I hadn’t even seen his work because he wasn’t really on social media and I didn’t really know anything about Salish art or Indigenous art. When he was saying, ‘I see trigons and crescents and all of this,’ it went completely over my head,” says self-taught artist Brevner, who apprenticed under renowned Japanese artist Sin Nakayamal while living in Osaka. 

Soon, the couple—both busy with their individual art careers—rented out a studio in Chinatown together, slowly collaborating on pieces.

“It almost was like our collaborative work became an escape from our own practices,” says Brevner of the fated connection. “It was almost like a jam session. We talked about it like that.”

Now, the couple have definitely hit their stride, with multiple public and private collaborations—including their daughter, Hana, born in 2022, who inspired their collaborative exhibit, The Seventh. 

“He approaches form from the negative and I approach it from the positive. [He] subtracts, then I add. There’s certain things that are so obvious to him and I can’t see it, and there’s certain things that are very obvious to me and he can’t see it,” Brevner says, “then we end up meeting in the middle.”

The Dreamweaver public mural can be seen on Thurlow Street in front of the Bentall Centre.

Public art pieces by Studio Lauren James have been found in different spots around the city, including Dreamweaver, a 60-by-50 foot mural on the side of 1055 Everleigh Street (it can be seen on Thurlow) and, previously, the Grateful Heron, a 20-by-16 foot mural on Granville Island. That particular site has now been demolished.

Together, they’re collaborating directly with the architects, designers and developers and—in essence—reshaping the city.

“Every other city in the world [has] their identity, but then when you come here, it’s like it’s been erased. We’re slowly, as a society, beginning to understand, ‘Well, how do we create this new identity going forward?’ Coast Salish design should be the answer, this is the way forward. Why don’t we acknowledge the land of 10 thousand-plus years of history, and integrate that knowledge into the design of our city?” says Harry.