Niamh Dooley: Nintawin
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Art Gallery of St Albert 19 Perron St, St. Albert, Alberta T8N 1E5
Niamh Dooley, "Nintawin," 2020
Emerging artist Niamh Dooley aims to redress the colonial practices of assimilation, loss of land rights, and the residential school system with her exhibition Nintawin, which means “my home” in Oji-Cree. Dooley is a band member of St. Theresa Point First Nation in Treaty 5 territory, and her exhibition focuses on family connection, inter-generational knowledge sharing, reclaiming ancestral knowledge and, ultimately, uncovering one’s true self.
The works in Nintawin are autobiographical in nature and are painted from old family photographs. They depict Dooley’s large extended family and cultural objects, and incorporate traditional materials such as beadwork, moose hair and sinew onto canvas primed with rabbit skin glue.