Quick Pick — Meryl McMaster: Bloodline On View In Victoria

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Meryl McMaster, “Edge of a Moment,” (at Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump), 2017, giclee print (photo courtesy of the artist, Stephen Bulger Gallery, and Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain)

Are you in Victoria, British Columbia this year? Head to the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria to see Meryl McMaster: Bloodline, on view through Oct. 19, 2025.

Based in Ottawa, Ont., McMaster has made headlines for her powerful large-scale self-portraits, which explore her sense of self through land and lineage. She holds a bachelor of fine arts from OCAD University and has won myriad awards for her work, including the Scotiabank New Generation Photography Award, REVEAL Indigenous Art Award, Charles Pachter Prize for Emerging Artists, Canon Canada Prize, and OCAD U Medal. Her work has been shown at the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art in Toronto. 

“Much of the art on view at the AGGV this summer is grounded in a sense of place and the relationships that exist between land and people with deep ancestral roots to that land,” says Steven McNeil, AGGV Chief Curator and Director of Collections and Exhibitions.

“In Bloodline, Meryl McMaster’s works speak to her blended Plains Cree, Métis, Dutch and British ancestry and especially to her roots in the Red Pheasant Cree Nation in Saskatchewan. McMaster’s photographs incorporate beautiful, contemporary garments, made by the artist herself that echo ceremonial regalia.”

The photography exhibition, which has been already shown in other parts of Canada, is curated by Sarah Milroy, chief curator of McMichael Canadian Art Collection and Tarah Hogue, curator (Indigenous Art) at Remai Modern. ■

Meryl McMaster: Bloodline, is on view at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria through Oct. 19, 2025.

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