Michelle Sound (Cree, Métis)
Exhibition
Bio
(b. 1977 Vancouver, BC; Cree, Métis)
Michelle Sound is a Cree and Métis artist, educator, and mother. She is a member of Wapsewsipi Swan River First Nation in Northern Alberta. Her mother is Cree from Kinuso, Alberta, Treaty 8 territory and her father’s family is Métis from the Buffalo Lake Métis settlement in central Alberta. She was born and raised on the unceded and ancestral home territories of the xwmƏƟkwƏýƏm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and SƏĺílwƏtaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations where she currently resides and works. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Simon Fraser University, School for the Contemporary Arts, and a Master of Applied Arts from Emily Carr University Art + Design.
Michelle’s latest exhibition Holding It Together is a mixed-media series that features nine large-scale monochromatic photo reproductions from the artist’s personal archive; pictures of her and her kin, her home territory, and scans from the dictionary from where she learned the Cree language. Each of the images have been torn and damaged at first, but then found repair through traditional ways of art-making; beading, quillwork, stitching, and caribou hair tufting are all at play throughout the series, serving as a visual representation of how the artist has co-existed and continues to co-exist with the effects of colonization.
“These images contain loss, grief, longing and memory. The images are ripped to show the colonial violence that my family, and other Indigenous families, have experienced including residential school intergenerational trauma, loss of language, and displacement from our territories. These losses can never be fully healed but we can talk about our histories and realities through art, culture and stories.”
– Michelle Sound
Sound’s work has most recently placed works in the McMichael Collection in Kleinburg, Ontario as well as the Forge Project in Hudson, New York. Exhibitions include a solo presentation at Art Toronto 2023, the Art Gallery of St. Albert, Neutral Ground ARC in Regina, Daphne Art Centre in Montréal, and the Polygon Gallery in North Vancouver. Public art pieces include street banners in New Westminster, a painted mural exhibition nākateyimisowin/Taking Care of Oneself in Ottawa, Ontario, and most recently a 6-panel photo installation at the Canadian Embassy in Paris, France.
Exhibitions
Available Work
Birthday
2022,
Monochrome print on paper, embroidery thread, seed beads, bakers twine, caribou tufting,
39.25” x 51.5”
Kokum and Mosum
2022,
Presentation bond paper, embroidery thread, seed beads, caribou tufting, vintage beads, dyed porcupine quills, metallic thread,
39.25" x 51.5"
Being Sick
2023,
Monochrome print on paper, embroidery thread, seed beads, mink poms, porcupine quills,
39.25” x 51.5”
Sickness
2023,
Monochrome print on paper, embroidery thread, seed beads, mink poms, porcupine quills,
39.25” x 51.5”
Siblings
2024,
Monochrome print on paper, embroidery thread, seed beads, mink poms, rik rack ,
39.25" x 51.5"
Chicory
2024,
Cyanotype on Elk Hide Drum,
20" x 20"
Lunaria
2024,
Cyanotype on Elk Hide Drum ,
10" x 10"
Slave Lake
2024,
Cyanotype on Elk Hide Drum,
20" x 20"
Catmint + Sage
2024,
Cyanotype on Elk Hide Drum,
14" x 14"
Fireweed
2024,
Cyanotype on Elk Hide Drum ,
14" x 14"
Nimama
2024,
Cyanotype on Elk Hide Drum,
14" x 14"
Snapdragon
2024,
Cyanotype on Elk Hide Drum ,
14" x 14"
Legends of Deer Lake
2024,
Cyanotype on Elk Hide Drum,
14" x 14"
Portal
2024,
Cyanotype on Elk Hide Drum ,
10" x 10"
Banff 1
2024,
Cyanotype on Elk Hide Drum ,
12" x 12"
Banff 2
2024 ,
Cyanotype on Elk Hide Drum ,
12" x 12"