About Our Logo

The Meaning of The NADA Logo & Biography of Kurt Flett, Artist

The NADA Logo

The painting describes healing. The eagle represents closeness to the Creator and is symbolic of strength and hope. The eagle feather within the circle of the sun is the path of healing. The eagle feather is the highest honour bestowed on an individual in Canadian Aboriginal cultures. The red sun is the artist’s trademark.

Kurt Flett is an Ojibwa/Cree who was born (1956) and raised in the northern Manitoba community of Garden Hill in the Island Lake area, about 500 kilometers northeast of Winnipeg.

Kurt started drawing with pencil crayons around age 11; his early artistic influences were Jackson Beardy and Stanley Monias. As an adult, he taught school for ten years, and then quit in 1986, moved to Winnipeg and has been a full-time artist ever since.

Flett’s commissions include the logo for the National Aboriginal Diabetes Association, and a long-standing relationship with the Science Faculty at the University of Manitoba, where he has done logos, promotional material and magazine covers since 1998. He has had solo shows in Montreal (1976), Chicago (1994) and several in Toronto. He has exhibited in group shows in Inuvik, Vancouver, Calgary, Thunder Bay and Golden, BC.

His association with the Wah-sa Gallery began with the group Miniature show in 2003. Corporate collections include The First Nations Buying Group, Manitoba Hydro and Darcol International.

Kurt paints in the Woodland Cree tradition, primarily influenced by the Kakagamic and Kakapetum styles.