Love Medicine, a highly anticipated group show by Indigiqueer artists, opened June 12 at the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina, Sask. Curated by Métis art historian Michelle McGeough, the exhibition explores how contemporary Indigiqueer artists use love as a methodology and practice to heal.
The show primarily concerns kinship and survival amidst ongoing colonial and settler violence enacted upon the two-spirit and Indigiqueer body, but it does not dwell on it. Instead, Love Medicine showcases how artists are reclaiming their identities and histories, using art as a healing medicine.
The MacKenzie is the oldest public art gallery in Saskatchewan. It is located in Wascana Park, which takes its name from the Cree words oskana kâ-asastêki (where the bones are piled), referring to Regina’s history as a bone repository during the 19th century massacre of the buffalo.
The exhibition opens spectacularly with “Wigwam,” a moderately sized triangular composition of smaller triangular canvas strips stitched together by Anishinaabe Saulteaux artist Robert Houle. The segments symbolize sacred geometries and the energy they hold, and are painted in pale shades of yellow, blue and green. Though it is the oldest piece in the show, being from 1972, this curatorial decision is less chronological than it is thematic. Houle’s legacy as a trailblazing Indigenous artist in Canada is felt throughout the exhibition.
Directly beside it are two 2023 wampum belts made by French-Anishinaabe artist Van Racine, featuring a spectrogram of the artist’s father and mother saying “I love you” in French and Anishinaabemowin, respectively. These two anchor the show in an intergenerational context amidst shifting trends in artistic expression with the consistent beliefs that ancient stories and ways of making can be used to understand modern Indigenous life, and that community sustains creativity.
A wigwam is a gathering space, and a wampum belt is an agreement. Together, Houle and Racine create a dialogue about legacy and the generative potential of intergenerational dialogue in contemporary art.
Towering over the exhibition is Anishinaabe artist Norval Morrisseau’s iconic “Androgyny,” painted in 1983. Love Medicine is somewhat frontloaded by this colossus overlooking the exhibition, and ending the show with it might have given the other works room to breathe. The polyptych is mesmerizing and towers over the other art works, clearing six meters in height. One cannot help but turn around for one last look at “Androgyny” as one ventures further from it. On a yellow background, a thunderbird stretches its wings over the colourful scene as a main focal point in the busy composition, connected to its surrounding beings by spirit lines that have become synonymous with the Woodland style.
The imposition of colonial prejudice has reshaped how sexuality is understood, enacted and embodied. Directly behind “Wigwam” and the wampum belts are three paintings from the Living Evidence 1994 series by Métis artist Rosalie Favell, which explore the invisibility of lesbian desire — particularly among Indigenous women — in popular culture and in historical record. Favell redacts her ex-lover’s eyes, a decision taken by the artist after the exhibitory venue mandated written permission to display the photos identifying the woman the paintings are based on in the 1990s. The paintings indicate an ambiguous relationship between the women. This distance, and the censoring of Favell’s ex-lover, can remind us that homosexuality continues to be seen as something to be cautious about, regardless of legal protection.
Curiously, the show is almost completely devoid of eroticism. However, certain works by the Inuvialuk artist Kablusiak and Métis artist Dayna Danger engage with sexuality, but ultimately present BDSM as a practice of care and community rather than one of carnality. A charming soapstone “Ball Gag” and “Butt Plug” by Kablusiak are displayed in a glass case that allows for a clear sight line to Danger’s 2020 photograph “Kinky Bundle” and kinship mask titled “Group of 7,” but the sexuality of the show begins and ends in this corner of the gallery space. Love Medicine focuses on many types of queer relationships with community, the world and oneself, but strikes a cautious chord.
Melcolm Beaulieu recreates a photograph in beadwork as an homage to matriarchs in their Mi’kmaq lineage, with circular beadwork motifs framing the figures like constellations in the night sky. Chipewyan artist Jake Kimble’s “It’s All So Incredibly Loud” channels beadwork as art passed down generations. In this series of self-portraits, the photographer is slowly subsumed by bright blue beads that begin as a tear drop and end as a frame filled with beads obscuring the artist. While Kimble is not a formally trained beader, they are creating a dialogue with beaders that came before them.
The show boasts a unique work by Cree artist Kent Monkman. “Oh For a Thousand Tongues” is an abstract and indirect painting that writes out a hymn bearing the same name in Cree syllabics with indistinct forms of male wrestlers blended into the words. The result is a ghostly composition that actively challenges imposed feelings of cultural and sexual shame, particularly amongst Indigenous gender nonconforming individuals.
The show ends clumsily with some weaker works on paper, a comedown offset by the imaginative sculptural works of Cree artist Cheyenne Rain LeGrande and Blackfoot artist Adrian Stimson that are interested in retrieving lost knowledge and cultural practices.
Set in a climate, and particularly a global art world, that has become resistant to identity, Love Medicine does not so much push back on this resistance as it does slam the door on the way out of these hostile discussions. While the sexuality in the exhibition was missed, McGeough has nevertheless brought together a formidable group of artists speaking to a range of Indigiqueer experiences. The show celebrates joy within hardship and offers insight into experiences, histories and how a new generation of artists are using traditional techniques to make some of the most exciting contemporary art being made today.
For further information and analysis of the pieces from an Indigenous perspective, visit the MacKenzie’s website atmackenzie.art/exhibition/love-medicine/.
Madison Beale is a Queer, British-Canadian settler art historian living and working on Treaty 1 Territory. She intends to graduate with a B.F.A. Hons in art history from the U of M in 2027. She hosts and produces the Artalogue, a podcast about arts careers currently in its 5th season. Listen to her conversation with Jake Kimble wherever you get your podcasts.
