The beaded artwork Chicken Pox, by Ruth Cuthand, is part of her Trading series. A Canada Council award has allowed Regina's MacKenzie Art Gallery to purchase six pieces from the series. (MacKenzie Art Gallery/Canada Council)Regina's MacKenzie Art Gallery has won a $30,000 Canada Council award that will allow it to add half a dozen works by Saskatoon artist Ruth Cuthand to its collection.

The Canada Council announced Tuesday that the Regina gallery will receive the 2009 York Wilson Endowment Award, an annual honour aimed at helping Canadian art museums and galleries acquire original works by living Canadian artists.

MacKenzie officials chose to add six of the 11 pieces from Cuthand's "hauntingly beautiful" Trading series to its holdings.

The series explores the goods and diseases that European traders introduced to the Americas. Individual pieces show the diseases — as seen under a microscope — rendered in intricate beadwork.

"Trading examines both sides of European trade, from the new items that revolutionized aboriginal life to the decimation of many tribes through disease," Cuthand said in a statement.

The Plains Cree artist, who creates works exploring the friction between cultures, also teaches art and art history at First Nations University.

"By addressing questions of history, identity and colonialism, the Trading series holds particular relevance for the people of Saskatchewan," said gallery executive director Stuart Reid.

The award, established in 1997, has helped art museums and galleries across the country acquire works by artists such as Iain Baxter, Rebecca Belmore and Graeme Patterson.