Faye HeavyShield
Bonds to land and community the focus of contemplative retrospective.
Faye HeavyShield, “Aapaskaiyaawa (They are Dancing),” 2002
acrylic on canvas, beads and plastic filament, installation view at the MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina (collection of MAG, Regina; photo by Don Hall, courtesy MAG)
Drawing on the slow, cumulative power of modest materials, small details and repeated forms, the sculptural installations of Faye HeavyShield invite viewers into an intimate relationship.
Her nationally touring retrospective, on view until Aug. 27 at the Winnipeg Art Gallery and then, in September, at Calgary’s Nickle Galleries, brings together works spanning 40 years of creative production.
HeavyShield is a Blackfoot (Blood) artist from Kainai territory in what is now southern Alberta. Many of her works vibrate between the abstract and the representational, reaching not just across space to reference earth and water, but also through time, connecting past and present.
The exhibition was organized by the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina, where curatorial fellow Felicia Gay, of Swampy Cree and Scottish heritage, collaborated closely with HeavyShield to emphasize the “ethic of relationality.” In her own process, Gay explores Indigenous curatorial approaches rooted in bonds to community and the land. Many of the show’s text panels emphasize the specific ways the works resonate with her personal and familial history.
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Faye HeavyShield, “The Art of Faye HeavyShield,” 2023, installation view at the MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina (photo by Don Hall, courtesy MAG)
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Faye HeavyShield, “The Art of Faye HeavyShield,” 2023, installation view at the MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina (photo by Don Hall, courtesy MAG)
Near the show’s main entry, Aapaskaiyaawa (They are Dancing) offers visitors a delicate yet potent invitation to engage, both physically and emotionally. The installation, with 12 monochromatically painted canvas forms suspended from the ceiling by almost invisible filaments, is arranged in a gently curved grouping. Animated by air currents and the movement and proximity of people in the room, the simplified but somehow anthropomorphic shapes rotate almost imperceptibly, suggesting a breathing, living interactive presence.
Faye HeavyShield, “wave,” 2018
digital image on paper and mixed media, dimensions variable, installation view at MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina (collection of the artist; photo by Don Hall, courtesy MAG)
Other installations consist of small, repeated forms. In body of land, 2002-2010, dozens of abstracted three-dimensional tipi shapes adhere to the gallery wall. In muted tones evoking both earth and skin, their loose arrangement suggests an evolving inclusion of the communal body.
Several works, including wave, sit humbly on the floor. Referring to the ancient spiral symbol, the piece is composed of photographs of Alberta prairie grasses wrapped around a thin rope coiled on the floor. The work evokes sound waves, ripples in water and the cycle of life, all inviting grounded contemplation.
Faye HeavyShield, “Red Dress,” 2008
nylon, cotton, glass beads and metal and paper tags, installation view at MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina (collection of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts; photo by Don Hall, courtesy MAG)
In an exhibition that often speaks quietly, Red Dress makes an emphatic visual statement. The life-sized dress features an ornamental neckline fashioned with white, metal-ringed tags that museums use to identify and catalogue objects in their collections. Here, HeavyShield comments on the reduction of Indigenous cultural materials to artifacts removed from their social and spiritual contexts, ripped from the flow of time, and preserved as evidence of supposedly lost cultures. The dress is not artifact but art, and, like all of HeavyShield’s work, its presence is vivified and specific, personal and powerful. ■
The Art of Faye HeavyShield at the Winnipeg Art Gallery-Qaumajuq in Winnipeg from April 29 to August 27, 2023. The show, organized by Felicia Gay at the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina, moves to Nickle Galleries in Calgary from Sept. 21 to Dec. 9, 2023, and the Carleton University Art Gallery in Ottawa from January to April 2004.
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