[Res]idual

[Res]idual
Audie Murray, KC Adams, Tania Willard, Thirza Jean Cuthand, and tunchai redvers
Curated by Chelsea Brant

June 16 – August 11, 2018
Opening Reception: June 16 from 7:00-9:00 pm

Hamilton Artists Inc. is pleased to present a guest-curated exhibition by Chelsea Brant, featuring artists Audie Murray, KC Adams, Tania Willard, Thirza Jean Cuthand, and tunchai redvers.

Reflecting on contemporary challenges Indigenous peoples encounter in present-day Canada and the lingering effects felt from years of assimilation and marginalization, [Res]idual brings together five Indigenous female artists from culturally diverse nations to speak to lived experiences of colonization in the 21st century.

Uniquely chosen, works by Audie Murray, KC Adams, Tania Willard, Thirza Jean Cuthand and tunchai redvers discuss larger economic, political and social hierarchical systems using tropes of humour, satire and appropriation. The artworks chosen collectively convey the separation of Aboriginal peoples from mother earth, their communities, methods of communication and their sense of cultural identity. The themes of land, love, loss and language weave throughout the exhibition, highlighting a narrative of adaptation and resistance to the dominant culture. Intellectually evocative, [Res]idual re-centers Indigenous female art practices and in doing so, diverts the male, euro-centric art world through Indigenous agency.

The exhibition publication with writing by Chelsea Brant, Shelley Niro, and tunchai redvers can be downloaded HERE. (PDF, 2.8 MB)

Auxiliary Programming

VISUAL | VOCAL
Wednesday, August 1, 7:00-9:00 pm

 Please join Hamilton Artists Inc. on Wednesday, August 1, from 7:00 - 9:00 pm for an evening of spoken word poetry by Six Nations artist Kahsenniyo Tahnee Williams. Enjoy an evening performance in our courtyard followed by a publication launch, celebrating the conclusion of the exhibition [Res]idual, curated by Chelsea Brant. An evening of empowering words and thought-provoking artwork, take home a copy of [Res]idual's publication with writing by Chelsea Brant, Shelley Niro, and tunchai redvers, and enjoy some light refreshments. Event is free and open to everyone.

Audie Murray is a multi-disciplinary Métis artist originally from Saskatchewan and currently learning and creating on the unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples. She has completed a visual arts diploma at Camosun College in 2016 and her Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Regina in 2017. She has studied traditional tattoo practices with the Earth Line Tattoo Collective in the summer of 2017. Working with themes of contemporary Indigenous culture, and ideas of connectivity and duality, she believes that the concept and energy of her artworks informs their materiality and form. Audie has shown her works at various events and spaces on turtle island including Open Space, the Mackenzie Art Gallery and the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery.

KC Adams graduated from Concordia University with a B.F.A in studio arts. Adams has had several solo exhibitions, group exhibitions and was included in the PHOTOQUAI: Biennale des images du monde in Paris, France. Adams participated in residencies at the Banff Centre, the Confederation Art Centre in Charlottetown, the National Museum of the American Indian and the Parramatta Arts Gallery in Australia. Her work is in many permanent collections Nationally and Internationally. Twenty pieces from the Cyborg Hybrid series are in the permanent collection of the National Art Gallery in Ottawa and four trees from Birch Bark Ltd, are in the collection of the Canadian Consulate of Australia, NSW. She was the set designer for the Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s Going Home Star: Truth and Reconciliation. She completed a public art sculpture for the United Way of Winnipeg called Community and recently won the Winnipeg Arts Council’s Making A Mark Award.

Tania Willard, Secwepemc Nation, works within the shifting ideas around contemporary and traditional, often working with bodies of knowledge and skills that are conceptually linked to her interest in intersections between Aboriginal and other cultures. Willard has worked as an artist in residence with Gallery Gachet in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side, the Banff Centre's visual arts residency, fiction and Trading Post and as a curator in residence with Grunt Gallery and Kamloops Art Gallery. Collections of Willard's work include the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Kamloops Art Gallery, Thompson Rivers University and the Burnaby Art Gallery. Willard’s curatorial work includes Beat Nation: Art Hip Hop and Aboriginal Culture, co-curated with Kathleen Ritter, Vancouver Art Gallery, featuring 27 contemporary Aboriginal artists, Beat Nation toured to Montreal, Toronoto, Kamloops, Nova Scotia and Regina. Other selected curatorial projects include Unceded Territories: Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun, co-curated with Karen Duffek at Museum of Anthropology, UBC. (May 2016). In 2016 Willard received the Award for Curatorial Excellence in Contemporary Art from the Hanatyshyn Foundation as well as a City of Vancouver Book Award for the catalogue for the exhibition Unceded Territories: Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun. Current projects include, Rule of theTrees, a public art project at Commercial Broadway sky train station and BUSH gallery, a conceptual land -based gallery grounded in Indigenous knowledges. Willard is an MFA candidate and her current research constructs a land rights aesthetic through intuitive archival acts.

Thirza Jean Cuthand was born in Regina, Saskatchewan in 1978. Since 1995 they’ve made experimental narrative videos and performances which have exhibited in festivals and galleries internationally, including Tribeca Film Festival in New York City, Mix Brasil Festival of Sexual Diversity in Sao Paolo, Oberhausen International Kurzfilmtage in Germany, the National Gallery in Ottawa, and Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. They completed a BFA in Film and Video at ECUAD, and an MA in Media Production at Ryerson University. They are currently developing a feature film and a video game. They are Plains Cree and Scots, and reside in Toronto

tunchai redvers known to Spirit as White Feather Woman, is a two-spirit Dene/Metis social justice warrior, writer and wanderer born from Denendeh roots in what is now Treaty 8, Northwest Territories. With a background in International Development Studies, she is currently working towards a Master of Indigenous Social Work and is the Co-Founder of We Matter, a national organization committed to Indigenous youth empowerment, hope, and life promotion.  Featured across national media outlets and published in a number of works, her advocacy and writing actively works to indigenize identity, self-love and mental health, and normalize discussions around hardship, hope and healing. Through her connection to sacred land and blood, tunchai often explores the personal topics of sexuality, two-spiritedness, loss, movement, resistance, reclamation, finding, and growth. She considers herself a nomad just like her ancestors.

Chelsea Brant is a Euro-Indigenous emerging artist and independent curator based in Guelph, ON. She is a Bachelor of Arts graduate from the University of Guelph, who has exhibited her work locally as well as internationally, in solo and group exhibitions, juried competitions, fundraising auctions and is held in private collections across Canada. Her personal practice is focused in oil painting, drawing and collage among other mediums and methods. Her work explores the themes of abstraction and representation, and focuses on beauty in the banal and overlooked spaces. Often conceptually based, and initiated through rudimentary cut and paste collages, she develops compositions and guidelines, allowing intuition to fill the latter. Brant works as the Program Coordinator for the Aboriginal Resource Centre at the University of Guelph and is a Board Member of the Guelph Symphony Orchestra. She has held many positions on Juries, Art Committees and Events Teams. Brant has taken some space from the studio to invest more time in curatorial work, but will be making a return, developing a new series of work for Fall 2018.

Shelley Niro was born in Niagara Falls, NY. Niro is a member of the Six Nations Reserve, Bay of Quinte Mohawk, Turtle Clan. Shelley graduated from the Ontario College of Art, Honours and received her Master of Fine Art from the University of Western Ontario. Niro was the inaugural recipient of the Aboriginal Arts Award presented through the Ontario Arts Council in 2012.