The People Who Live Here

Plains Cree artist, educator and cultural worker George Littlechild — also known as nanekawâsis — was born and raised in Edmonton, and is a survivor of the Sixties Scoop. Littlechild’s work is explicitly political and emotional, aiming to uplift Indigenous cultures and honour those lost to the horrors of residential schools and other systems of assimilation in Canada.

In much of Littlechild’s work, archival images and research make their way into his paintings and drawings. For example, in Creator of Regalia a photographic image is centrally embedded in a vibrant field of colours and shapes. The artwork brings attention to the labor of Indigenous women and the traditions they carry. For Littlechild, the process of looking at archives has added to his knowledge of people in his community. He notes, 

“When I started, I’d find photographs with no names. There’d be a lot of rows of faces and I’d find the names belonging to those faces, because to me they weren’t just faces, they were individuals, they had a story, they lived. I’d go back to the reserve and talk to elders. It’s actually been a wonderful way to get to know people.”

His prolific body of work has been exhibited internationally and featured publications such as This Land Is My Land (1993), Just Like Me (1997), and most notably, his retrospective book, The Spirit Giggles Within (2012).

Nêhiyaw (Cree) artist Allen Sapp is widely known for his observational paintings that depict scenes of daily life on the Canadian Prairies. Sapp’s work not only captured the spirit and practices of Plains Cree people, but conveys memories of his own family and early childhood.

In his painting Stopped to Talk, Sapp presents a scene where two couples on horse-drawn sleds meet in a snowy field. Sapp once recalled how “on holidays or Christmas people drove over to some friends to get food and drink together. When I was a little boy, my brothers, Stella and me, I remember we pulled a blanket over us in the sleigh, my father driving the team.” The painting provides a glimpse of a time where life was slower and how families once traveled and socialized with one another.

While largely grounded in his personal experiences, Sapp’s work is also documentary in nature. His paintings tell the story of Indigenous people on the prairies during the mid-twentieth century and serve as a critical “bridge for other cultures to come to understand the Indian way of life and the world view underlying it.”

Red prairie braids - embossed, 2023, depicts the image of an individual with their back to the viewer. On the back of their shirt, a prairie lily is embroidered, touching on the artist’s connection to Saskatchewan and Treaty No. 6 Territory. This version of the print uses red ink and is embossed with a bullseye. Through this print, the artist explores issues of settler-Indigenous relations in the Saskatchewan judicial system and gun violence towards Indigenous peoples.

For the artist, Wally (Walter) Dion, “braids represent strength, culture and spirituality…Hair has long been a battleground for the church & settler power structures. In this way, braiding, washing or not washing, hair has become an act of resistance for Indigenous people.”

Dion is a member of the Yellow Quill First Nation (Salteaux) living and working in Upstate New York. Through a variety of mediums, including painting, drawing, and sculpture, his art is concerned with issues of identity and power.