Kent Monkman is a Toronto-based Canadian artist of Cree ancestry known for his paintings, videos and film, photography, sculpture, installations and performance art. His alter-ego, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, a drag queen inspired by Cher’s hit song Half-Breed, makes frequent appearances in much of his work. Monkman’s numerous solo exhibition venues have included the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art in Toronto, the Winnipeg Art Gallery and the Art Gallery of Hamilton. He has created site-specific performances at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, the Royal Ontario Museum, and at Compton Verney.

In The Triumph of Mischief, Monkman draws inspiration from Western histories as pictured in 19th century art. He creates new works that inject First Nations subject matter as well as queer narratives into scenes based on old photographs, paintings, classic Hollywood westerns and colonial portrayals of Aboriginal peoples. Stereotypes of masculinity and queer culture are confronted and skewed through his witty scenarios of Pioneer orgies and homoerotic fantasies. Hilarious and biting, his greatly refreshed accounts challenge the “authority” of western history and the manner in which it was depicted from a Eurocentric point of view by such artists as Paul Kane and Cornelius Krieghoff.

The Triumph of Mischief originated as a collaborative project between the Art Gallery of Hamilton, the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art and the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, and was also shown at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. It features paintings and multimedia works from the last five years.

There will be a solo exhibit of Monkman’s recent paintings at TrépanierBaer Gallery, Calgary from February 11-March 11.

www.glenbow.org

Mia Johnson