Remai Modern and McMichael Canadian Art Collection are proud to present Meryl McMaster: bloodline, a survey exhibition of her large-scale photography. McMaster is a leading voice in art today, making self-portraits that explore her mixed nêhiyaw (Plains Cree)/Siksika and Anglo/Dutch ancestry. While some of her earliest works infuse historical representations of Indigenous peoples with contemporary presence, others suggest a sort of imaginative repossession of the land, articulated in dreamlike scenarios. Her elaborate costumes, which she crafts herself, embody the blended strains of her ancestry, often echoing historical garments and ceremonial regalia.
The exhibition opens to visitors on Saturday, July 22. RSVP to her artist talk with exhibition curator Tarah Hogue on July 20, and attend the opening celebration on July 21. You can also find her exhibition catalogue in our Art & Design Store.
bloodline includes works from throughout her career and brings us up to date on her current explorations of family histories, in particular those of her nêhiyaw female forebears from the Red Pheasant Cree Nation in present-day Saskatchewan. Keep reading to learn about how McMaster explores her family history and represents it through her art.
“There’s such a nostalgic feeling to looking at old black and white photographs, and there’s this draw I had when looking at them — looking at the details to see if I recognize myself in these women and family members, some that I knew growing up and then others that I never had the chance to meet. It’s just like this urge to connect and to learn what life was like from their perspective.”
—Meryl McMaster with Leah Collins for CBC
The works in McMaster’s most recent series, nôhkominak âcimowina / Stories of My Grandmothers, picture the artist on the home territory of her father’s nêhiyaw family on Red Pheasant Cree Nation in central Saskatchewan. These images reach for connection across time to the three generations of remarkable nêhiyaw and Métis women who came before the artist in the family line. As McMaster puts it, “While we may never know the full truths of our ancestors, we can still hold their memories close to our hearts.” A mother now herself, she continues to delve for the roots of her cultural identity, expanding her practice in this exhibition to include, for the first time, the medium of film.
“With my new work, I resolved to make my grandmothers visible, since so much of their history, and Indigenous history, and most especially for Indigenous women in general, has gone unrecognized. There were a lot of struggles my grandmothers and our people experienced under colonial rule. I think there is still much work to be done to make their stories and events more understood and appreciated. I feel my work is only a small part of helping resolve the questions I am raising.”
—Meryl McMaster with Simone Aziga for Foyer
nôhkominak âcimowina / Stories of My Grandmothers draws on the lives of three of McMaster’s paternal female relatives: her grandmother Lena McMaster (1921–2013); her great-grandmother Isabella (Bella) Wuttunee (1898–1980); and her great-great-grandmother Matilda (Tilly) Schmidt (1870–1955). Collectively their experience spans 130 years lived on the Red Pheasant Cree Nation. McMaster’s new works have their genesis in her great-grandmother’s diaries, which contain simple and casually noted descriptions of events in her daily life—from chores and the weather to special visitors and trips to town. McMaster has blended these memories with those of her father, her great-aunt, her great-uncle, and others in the Red Pheasant community. “By establishing a dialogue with my grandmothers, I keep their memories relevant and alive, “McMaster says, “making visible a transfer of knowledge between four generations of women.”
Family stories are embedded in the ephemera and costumes pictured in McMaster’s works. A photo of her three grandmothers appears in The Grass Grows Deep. Representations of plants and seed pods in Remember the Sky You Were Born Under refer to Matilda Schmidt’s work in collecting plants for medicine and trade. The bundle carried in When the Shadows Fall pays tribute to Isabella Wuttunee’s diary entries about collecting wood. And in Every Path Tells, McMaster wears Lena McMaster’s travel card, one that she required to leave the reserve to visit her future husband, both a symbol of colonialism and connection. Through the relationship between photography, video, and personal artifacts, this exhibition creates a powerful narrative that joins past and present.
“As you get older and grandparents pass away and you’re seeing your own parents age, and time is going at a certain pace, you realize that one day you’re going to have to be the steward of these stories and these memories.”
—Meryl McMaster with Sarah Milroy for Meryl McMaster: bloodline
Learn More
Hear more from McMaster on her own practice, including thoughts on the technical details of photography and prop-making, and her experiences of working with the land.
Read
- Photographer Meryl McMaster: ‘How the world is really transformed’ | Maclean’s
- Artist Interview: Meryl McMaster | Glenbow Museum
- As Immense as the Sky | LensCulture
Watch
- Artist and Curator in Conversation: Meryl McMaster and Gaëlle Morel | The Image Centre
- Meryl McMaster: Edge of a Moment | Directed by David Hartman for the McMichael Canadian Art Collection
Meryl McMaster: bloodline is on view at Remai Modern from July 22 – December 31, 2023.
bloodline is co-organized by the McMichael Canadian Art Collection and Remai Modern.
Curated by Sarah Milroy, Chief Curator, McMichael Canadian Art Collection and Tarah Hogue, Curator (Indigenous Art), Remai Modern.
Remai Modern would like to acknowledge the contributions of the Canada Council for the Arts, Hatch, Scotiabank Contact Photography Festival, and Superframe for supporting this exhibition.
About the Artist
Meryl McMaster is nêhiyaw from Red Pheasant Cree Nation, a member of the Siksika Nation, and has British and Dutch ancestry. Her work is predominantly photography based, incorporating the production of props, sculptural garments and performance, forming a synergy that transports the viewer out of the ordinary and into a space of contemplation and introspection.
McMaster is the recipient of the Scotiabank New Generation Photography Award, the REVEAL Indigenous Art Award, Charles Pachter Prize for Emerging Artists, the Canon Canada Prize, the Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship, the OCAD U Medal and was long listed for the 2016 Sobey Art Award.
Her work has been acquired by various public collections within Canada and the United States, including the Canadian Museum of History, the Art Gallery of Ontario, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Eiteljorg Museum, the National Museum of the American Indian, the Ottawa Art Gallery, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada.
Her work has been included in exhibitions throughout Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, including the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American Indian, the Art Gallery of Ontario, Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art, the Eiteljorg Museum, the Ottawa Art Gallery, the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, the Mendel Art Gallery and the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria.