Meryl McMaster (b. Ottawa, 1988) is a leading contemporary artistic voice, producing large-scale photographic self-portraits that explore her mixed Plains Cree/Siksika and Anglo/Dutch ancestry. This survey exhibition looks back on McMaster’s past accomplishments while bringing us up to date on her current explorations of family histories, in particular those of her female Plains Cree forebears from the Red Pheasant Cree Nation in present day Saskatchewan.

While some of McMaster’s earliest works infuse historical representations of Indigenous peoples with contemporary interpretations, others suggest an imaginative repossession of the land, articulated in dreamlike scenarios. Her elaborate costumes, which she crafts herself, embody the blended strains of her ancestry, often with aesthetic echoes of historical garments and ceremonial regalia.

The artist’s more recent works picture her on the home territory of her father’s Plains Cree family on Red Pheasant Cree Nation. The most recent of these photographs reach across time, connecting to the three generations of remarkable Plains Cree and Métis women who came before the artist in her family line: her grandmother Lena McMaster (1921–2013); her great-grandmother Isabella (Bella) Wuttunee (1898–1980); and her great-great-grandmother Matilda (Tilly) Schmidt (1870–1955).

McMaster’s new works have their genesis in her great-grandmother’s diaries, which contain simple and casual descriptions of events in her daily life, from chores and the weather, to special visitors and trips to town. McMaster visually blends these memories with those of her father, her great-aunt, her great-uncle, and others in the Red Pheasant community. “By establishing a dialogue with my grandmothers, I keep their memories relevant and alive,” McMaster says, “making visible a transfer of knowledge between four generations of women.”

McMaster reflects, “While we may never know the full truths of our ancestors, we can still hold their memories close to our hearts.” A mother now herself, she continues to delve into the roots of her cultural identity, expanding her practice to include the moving image with her videos nipēhtēnān kiteh / We Can Hear Your Heartbeat (2023) and niwaniskân isi kiya / I Awake to You (2023), presented for the first time in this exhibition.