Looking the World in the Face
Looking the World in the Face
June 16, 2022 to May 22, 2023
In 2022, the Canada Council Art Bank celebrates its 50th anniversary with Looking the World in the Face. The exhibition includes an unprecedented number of artworks by Indigenous and racialized artists from the Art Bank collection presented in Âjagemô exhibition space.
The exhibition presents works by: Barry Ace, Shuvinai Ashoona, Shelly Bahl, Carl Beam, Rebecca Belmore, Raphael Bendahan, Cécilia Bracmort, Reg Davidson, Sarindar Dhaliwal, Sherry Farrell Racette, Sunil Gupta, Jamelie Hassan, Jérôme Havre, Joanne Hui, Emily Illuitok, Gloria Inugaq Putumiraqtuq, Pedro Isztin, Serapio Ittusardjuat, Erik Jerezano, Sanaz Mazinani, Anna Jane McIntyre, Meryl McMaster, Norval Morrisseau, Indira Nair, Louise Noguchi, Julie Oh, Abdi Osman, Christina Peters, Ed Pien, Ramona Ramlochand, Paul Robles, Noboru Sawai, Ranjan Sen, Skawennati, Sam Tata, Jeff Thomas, Howie Tsui, Qavaroak Tunnillie, and Chih-Chien Wang.
Learn more about some of the artists featured in the exhibition.
Curatorial Statement
Looking the World in the Face examines cultural representation in the Art Bank collection. It honours the significant contributions Indigenous and racialized artists, who have been historically underrepresented, have made to Canada.
By focusing on faces, the exhibition demonstrates how artists from marginalized communities defy the gaze of the dominant culture by representing themselves, telling their stories, and challenging stereotypes. The works are about more than mere visibility or self-portrayal. They are acts of valiant resistance and generous affirmation by artists who insist on being seen.
From self-portraits to depictions of kin, comics to allegories, and historical figures to contemporary groups, the works convey a range of preoccupations, aspirations, and world views in unvarnished, critical, and creative ways. Amplifying difference and plurality, the representations do not give themselves away easily and lay bare the complexity of historically marginalized communities in Canada. The exhibition proposes that the multiplicity found in these depictions confronts us with the face of the world.
As the Art Bank celebrates its 50th anniversary, the exhibition reflects a collection that includes a broad range of artists and perspectives. The exhibition asks visitors an important and relevant question: how can the arts help Canada look itself, and the world, in the face?
About the Curator
Amin Alsaden is a curator, educator, and scholar of art and architecture whose work focuses on transnational solidarities and exchanges across cultural boundaries. With his commitment to advancing social justice through the arts, Alsaden’s curatorial practice contributes to the dissemination of more diverse, inclusive, and global narratives by decentring and expanding existing canons, and challenging hegemonic knowledge and power structures. His research explores the history and theory of modern and contemporary art and architecture globally, with specific expertise in the Arab and Muslim worlds. He regularly serves as a guest critic and advisor for art, curatorial, and design programs, and has published and lectured widely.
Gallery
Jamelie Hassan (1948– )
The Oblivion Seekers, 1985
ink on paper
“This drawing began with a memory and is part of a larger series of ink drawings. Growing up in the 1950s, I was conscious of our family’s Arab and Muslim identity. In 1955, the first Islamic convention in Canada took place in London, Ontario, where our community gathered, and the media captured my memory of dancing. This series combines both real and orientalist imagery, mixing my memories with historical characters, so I inscribe the names of Umm Kulthum and Isabelle Eberhardt. Various elements come together in a dialogical relationship—movements between sites, familiar and intimate—while recognizing tensions.”
Photo: Brandon Clarida Images Services
Sarindar Dhaliwal (1953– )
Triple Self Portrait with Persimmon and Pomegranates, 1988
collage, watercolour, oil pastel, and coloured pencil on paper
“This painting was an act of resistance against the authoritative voices of the art world, which characterized my work as too decorative, too personal. So I created the most decorative and colourful work possible, with flowers, figures, birds, animals, fruits, and maps — a ‘portrait’ of my life in Asia, Europe, and North America. It revisits previous visual vocabularies, juxtaposed in the shallow space of the miniature to allow for different realities to coexist. It also demonstrates links between my installations and paintings, some exploring the mother-daughter bond. My practice has always been connected to the emotional underpinnings of my life.”
Photo: Lipman Still Pictures
Jeff Thomas (1956– )
Traditional Powwow Dancer Joseph Crowe, Saultaux , 1990
colour photograph
“I met Joseph Crowe at several powwows in Winnipeg during 1990 and 1991, seen here at the camping area of the Sioux Valley Reserve. My powwow portrait series 'Strong Hearts' provided me with sitters to interrogate the ways Indians had been photographed by non-Indigenous image-makers. I saw the value of seeing ourselves through photographs as part of today’s self-determination movement, which also includes the residential school history. I curated the residential school exhibition Where are the Children: Healing the Legacy of Residential Schools in 2002, and images of power, as seen in Joseph Crowe, show the resiliency of Indigenous people.”
Photo: Lipman Still Pictures
Louise Noguchi (1958– )
Compilation Portrait #15, 1995
black and white photograph
“I came across an old story of a woman who murdered her husband, but she had such a beautiful face. I took a photograph in the exact same pose and weaved the two portraits together. I wondered if any of us can become a murderer. The idea of the hunter and hunted is part of this work. As a Japanese Canadian, I think about how the Japanese have not reconciled themselves with the things they did to others, but as Canadians, my parents and grandparents suffered in internment camps here. There is tension in the work, and in our identities.”
Photo: Brandon Clarida Images Services
Shelly Bahl (1970– )
Portrait of a Princess II , 1998
acrylic on paper
“My art practice explores the strange and surreal aspects of cultural hybridity, and old and new forms of colonization. I have investigated the history and exotification of Indian art and culture, questioning the practices of Orientalism, kitsch appropriation, and the mass production and consumption of culturally specific iconographies. I deconstructed and re-contextualized elements from different historical periods and artistic movements. In this work, a vignette, two women meet outside of the boundaries of time and space. There are hints, such as their manner of dress, that identify them as being from different worlds, but they come together here for a surreal tea party.”
Photo: Brandon Clarida Images Services
Sherry Farrell Racette (1952– )
Tired Woman Contemplating Masks, 2000
cotton, paper clay, felt coton
“This work is from Dolls for Big Girls, a solo exhibition that included several portrait figures. The show addressed broader issues of representation in children’s visual culture and explored dolls as an expressive form. Tired Woman is a self-portrait. At the time, I was juggling multiple responsibilities as mother, artist, board member, and professor working on the front lines of institutional change. I often felt I was putting on armour as I prepared to leave the house. One of the other dolls, Fighting Institutional Racism Woman, wore a jumpsuit and cape, but in this work, I shared vulnerability and exhaustion.”
Photo: Brandon Clarida Images Services
Reg Davidson (1954– )
Eagle Portrait Mask , 2004
red cedar, acrylic and operculum shell
“This is an eagle portrait mask representing a human figure with the Eagle crest symbol displayed on the forehead. Haida artists have often carved naturalistic portraits, which are sometimes depictions of known individuals or stylized representations of ancestors long passed. The forms painted on the forehead and cheeks identify family affiliations; I am a member of the Eagle clan and so have chosen to depict the eagle. This mask was carved in 2004 and is made of red cedar, operculum shell, cedar bark, and acrylic paint.”
Photo: Brandon Clarida Images Services
Barry Ace (1958– )
Cashing In, 2004
acrylic on canvas
“'Super Phat Nish' is a series addressing urban Indigenous experience through the creation of a popular culture icon. Based on the Anishinaabe mythological trickster Nanabozho, SPN is a self-reflexive personification constantly transforming to engage, critique, and indigenize normative settler imagery. The shape-shifting SPN can be perceived as humorous and ironic, yet simultaneously, there is a subversive subtext that levels cultural critique against dominant narratives. SPN reclaims stereo-typical representations to challenge negative racial portrayals through a repositioning that coalesces with contemporary Indigenous urbanity. 'Super Phat' (cool and hip) combines with 'Nish' (cajoling street-smart term for Anishinaabe) to reference belonging and tribalism.”
Photo: Brandon Clarida Images Services
Paul Robles (1969– )
My Beautiful War (detail), 2005-06
cut-paper, collage on vellum paper
“The orange Chinese opera mask cut-out is drawn from a series I produced in 2003–2007, which stemmed from the politics created by George Bush’s ‘war on terror,‘ as well as my visits to small towns in Northern Ontario, where my partner’s parents lived. Her family were miners and ‘bush men’ who hunted and fished, hence the depiction of deer heads. I was exploring male identity and aggression, and launching my own war on that, through the notion of otherness, based on my identity as a Filipino-Canadian, and using a medium often associated with ‘lap’ work—delicate, crafty, lace-like paper cuts.”
Photo: Brandon Clarida Images Services
Shuvinai Ashoona (1961– )
Composition (People With Egg Toolboxes), 2005-06
ink
“The people in this drawing are my younger classmates. They are carrying cameras or iPods shaped like eggs. In the future, they will see in these eggs the tools we used. The tools are for art-making and also for scraping the blubber of seal and other animals that live here. I drew the clothes to look like my family’s clothes. They are putting the eggs in crates on a truck at the beach. I was thinking of my great grandparents hauling boxes of food and pops to a warehouse near the beach area, going back and forth to the ship.”
Courtesy of Feheley Fine Arts
Sanaz Mazinani (1978– )
Woman Reading on Bus, Tehran, Iran, 2006
colour photograph
“In this project, I work against romanticized representations of Southwest Asia. My images strip away the prevailing imagery of ‘the other’ that emphasize the desert, or the veiled woman. I refuse to reduce the complexity of Iranian society to the question of hijab—instead, it must be understood in terms of the competing forces of tradition and change. This photograph is part of a larger project, titled ‘Iran Revisited,’ made between 1999–2013. Exploring the faces of contemporary Iran, my homeland, I work to visualize the impact of pictorial representation on understanding one another and how it constructs cultural identities.”
Photo: Lipman Still Pictures
Howie Tsui (1978– )
Bipolar, 2006
ink, acrylic, collage on mylar
“This piece is from my series ‘Of Manga and Mongrels,’ which involves inking over reproductions of Hokusai’s 19th century manga illustrations with portraits of my own distinctive anime-inspired characters. This metamorphosis is an allegory of my assimilation into Western culture and reflects the shifting nature of identity inherent to the immigrant experience. These portraits also convey a sense of archeology, of time encapsulated. Through this juxtaposition, I am suggesting a historical reference point for the burgeoning Superflat (Asian Pop Art) movement validated by Takashi Murakami as an integral influence on contemporary art and design in both popular and underground cultures.”
Courtesy of Howie Tsui
Erik Jerezano (1973– )
The Long-Armed Candidate, 2008
watercolour, ink and pencil on paper
“My work filters my experiences as an immigrant, and the stories my grandmother told me when I was growing up in Mexico City. I have always been attracted to myths, fables, religious rituals (although I am not religious myself), cults, and spooky tales. This drawing is from a series where I explored watercolours, and which was populated by a cast of characters constantly morphing. I remember hearing stories about humans transitioning into animals. There is a joke in this drawing about politicians, who have big mouths during campaigns, and then develop long arms when they come to power.”
Courtesy of Erik Jerezano
Anna Jane McIntyre (1973– )
Thinking of All the Famous People I Know, 2008
monoprint
“Everything is caught mid-movement, except for the mummified figure on the bottom left, a self-portrait that contains a silent soundtrack query of ‘Where are you going, please?’ In the centre are Mickey Mouse figures, to me the polite version of blackface, reminiscent of early cartoon depictions of African Americans. The skulls are cheerful memento mori, tumbling figures topped by a clown head. The fish, the anteater head, the parrot, the golden arm offering a golden handshake, and the ibis have more nebulous roles. The characters are from my imagined conceptual circus, a social barometer for definitions of normality and glamour.”
Courtesy of Anna Jane McIntyre
Jérôme Havre (1972– )
Sans titre, 2009
colour photograph
“This work is part of a series entitled ‘Magnificent Isolation’. It invites reflections from the observer while offering more obvious and common references to the notions of identity, roots, and family. My artistic practice deals with personal and social identities, and representations of these identities through images and forms that have educational, historical, and pleasurable functions. I question the notions of identity, culture, race, visibility, representations, migration, exile, colonization. From the moment you think it’s acquired, put your certainty back on the chessboard of doubt. Let the vertigo creep in. All is perhaps not said…”
Photo: Lipman Still Pictures
Julie Oh (1984– )
Paper Route, 2009
colour photograph
“Having a paper route meant I could be like everyone else. This whole picture series was about that time, growing up as a child of an immigrant. I made this image from memory, using actors who resembled my sister and me, so that it can become a real thing to be revisited again. It’s a beautiful reminder, as an artist today, to continue to draw from that place of honesty and vulnerability. My poor sister received only a fraction of my monthly cheque, which she begrudgingly brings up to this day during family dinners. For that, I am truly sorry.”
Courtesy of Julie Oh
Meryl McMaster (1988– )
Becoming Laura, 2012
giclée on cotton
“This work invokes historical and mythical imagery that recall the memory and legend of Laura Ingersoll Secord, a distant relative of my family, remembered for bravery during the War of 1812, when she warned British soldiers and First Nations warriors of an impending American assault. Assuming the form of Laura, I carry her tale on a symbol, a ship’s sail. Words from the song Secord’s Warning drift away in hopes of reaching her wounded husband’s comrades. Meanwhile, a messenger of ‘ill omen,’ the Raven, guides me/Laura through this ordeal. Laura’s warning was effective: British and Mohawk allies were victorious.”
Courtesy of Meryl McMaster
Cécilia Bracmort (1985– )
Peau nature morte, sans titre III, 2020
inkjet print
“This photograph is from a series that questions the perception of my body and identity in the West. Tropical fruits became an obvious choice: like exotic fruits, my Black and female body points to an idealized elsewhere. This evokes notions of displacement (importation or immigration) and to an obsession with origins, of both the product and my identity, which puts in doubt the legitimacy of my presence in a given space. Fruit skins take the form of masks that Western society forces me to wear because of a colonial heritage, rooted in the history of slavery, that still shapes the collective imagination.”
Courtesy of Cécilia Bracmort