Almost Live episode #152
Experience the poetic power of the work of Blackfoot (Blood) artist Faye HeavyShield
Faye HeavyShield’s work has had a profound impact on Indigenous artists from the Northern Plains and across Turtle Island. Drawing on her experience as a Blackfoot (Blood) woman and cultural matriarch from Kainai territory, in the foothills of Southern Alberta, HeavyShield created a new artistic vocabulary and potent minimalist aesthetic that established her as a major contributor to contemporary art.
This first touring retrospective of HeavyShield’s work spans four decades of her practice and occupies all of CUAG’s gallery spaces. It presents a powerful selection of the artist’s drawings, paintings, sculptures and installation works, which are grounded in the deep art history of the prairies and in her personal and communal experiences. HeavyShield’s approach as an artist centres relationality, in an aesthetics of humility and in poetic visual articulations of Blackfoot language — all rooted within her specific cultural context.
Host Amy Amantea will be joined by Carleton University Art Gallery educator Fiona Wright, who will present descriptive highlights from this recent exhibition.
Presented with the kind permission of Carleton University Art Gallery (CUAG)
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About the Artist
Born in 1953, Faye HeavyShield began exhibiting her work in the early 1980s. Ottawa-Gatineau audiences were introduced to HeavyShield’s work in the 1980s at Ufundi Gallery, on Sussex Avenue, alongside such fellow First Nations contemporary artists as Shelley Niro, Robert Houle and Carl Beam. In 1992, HeavyShield’s work was featured in the groundbreaking exhibition Land, Spirit, Power: First Nations at the National Gallery of Canada.
Today, Faye HeavyShield is renowned internationally. Her work is held in public collections across North America and has been featured in major exhibitions at The Power Plant, National Gallery of Canada, Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Art Gallery of Ontario, Pulitzer Arts Foundation (St. Louis), MacKenzie Art Gallery, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Art Gallery of Alberta and the Remai Modern, among many others.
The Art of Sovereignty, a TVO Podcast interview with Faye HeavyShield
