Niro is a member of the Six Nations Reserve, Turtle Clan, Bay of Quinte Mohawk, near Brantford, Ontario, and a multidisciplinary artist. In the 1980s she explored identity and cultural memory through a series of joyful portraits of her mother and sisters. The Rebel, 1982, takes its title from the American Motors car of the same name and features her mother, June Chiquita Doxtater, playfully lying across the trunk. The light-hearted tone of the work was both a purposeful contrast with the negative stereotypes of Indigenous people circulating in mainstream culture and a reference to the matriarchal structure of Haudenosaunee culture. Niro was the winner of the 2017 Scotiabank Photography Award.

Image: Shelley Niro, The Rebel, 1987, hand-tinted photograph, 35 x 41.5 cm, courtesy of the artist.

For further reading, see:

Lennon, Madeline. Shelley Niro: Seeing through Memory. London: Blue Medium Press, 2014, 9–18.

Morel, Gaëlle, Wanda Nanibush, and Ryan Rice. Shelley Niro. Göttingen: Steidl, 2018.

Nishimura’s parents settled in southern Alberta in the 1910s, his father using photography to communicate with his family in Japan. Nishimura learned photography from his father and went on to teach the subject at the University of Calgary from 1971 to 2010. He uses historical wet plate processes to produce black and white photographs. Much of his work focuses on the prairie landscape and incorporates traces of industrial infrastructure and architecture.

Image: Arthur Nishimura, Wheel of Flatland Dharma, 1978, selenium-toned gelatin silver print on paper, 15 x 15 cm, Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Edmonton.

For further reading, see:

“Artist’s Statement.” Todd Schaber and Arthur Nishimura: Mystical Landscapes, Exhibition Guide, Art Gallery of Grande Prairie Travelling Exhibition Program, 2020. www.airdriepubliclibrary.ca/content/download/35198/file/Combined-EXH-ED-GUIDE-Mystical-Landscapes.pdf.