Meryl McMaster: Bloodline is a survey exhibition of a remarkable Canadian artist whose large-scale photographic works reflect her mixed Plains Cree/Métis, Dutch, and British ancestry. This exhibition looks back to McMaster’s past accomplishments and brings us up to date on her current explorations of family histories, in particular those of her Plains Cree female forebears from the Red Pheasant Cree Nation in present day Saskatchewan.

While some of her earliest works infuse historical representations of Indigenous peoples with contemporary aspects, 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.

McMaster’s more recent works picture the artist on the home territory of her father’s Plains Cree family on Red Pheasant Cree Nation in central Saskatchewan, Canada. These recent works reach for connection across time to the three generations of remarkable Plains Cree 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, two recent video-based works titled Niwaniskân isi Kiya | I Awake to You (2023) and Nipēhtēnān Kiteh | We Can Hear Your Heartbeat (2023).

Organized and circulated by the McMichael Canadian Art Collection

In partnership with Remai Modern

Meryl McMaster is nêhiyaw from Red Pheasant Cree Nation, a member of the Siksika Nation, and has Métis, Niitsitapi (Blackfoot), 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.

Image Credit

Meryl McMaster
Remember The Sky You Were Born Under, 2022
Giclée Print
101.6 x 152.4 cm
Courtesy of the artist, Stephen Bulger Gallery, and Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain