First Stories - Patrick Ross

Patrick Ross is Ervin Chartrand's second short film. In the 6-minute piece, Chartrand renders a beautiful cinematic portrait of ex-prison inmate, 29-year-old Patrick Ross, a Dakota  from the Sioux Valley Dakota Nation, Ross was not an artist, nor a spiritual person, until he came to Manitoba's Stony Mountain Institution. There he met artist inmate Terry Southwind, and started to paint. His work quickly evolved to a point where he felt most comfortable using white paint over black canvases - a style that can only be described as 'seeing'. We watch Patrick create one of his extraordinary paintings while he shares his thoughts on his art, his time in jail and his hopes for the future. "The film is like the artist it depicts: cool, articulate, with an undercurrent of hard-won wisdom that shines through in the work." - Randall King, Winnipeg Free Press