Robert Houle: Histories

September 14, 2019 – February 23, 2020

About the exhibition

This exhibition presents a selection of works by the leading Saulteaux artist Robert Houle who grew up in Sandy Bay First Nation on the western shore of Lake Manitoba. In his early days, Houle attended Sandy Bay Residential School and, like many Indigenous children, experienced abuse there. At its heart, the exhibition features a selection of works from Houle’s Sandy Bay Residential School series (2009), a suite of 24 oilstick drawings made by the artist as he recollected these childhood terrors. Histories also includes Houle’s magnificent self-portrait Blue Thunder (2011), an unfurling testament to the artist’s courage and resilience, and Muhnedobe uhyahyuk (Where the gods are present) (1989), a group of four large canvases that express the artist’s redemptive connection to the land and sky of Manitoba.

About the artist

Robert Houle is a painter, writer and educator and is a member of Sandy Bay First Nation in Manitoba. He studied painting and drawing at the International Summer Academy of Fine Arts in Salzburg, Austria. His work is held in collections throughout Canada and in several international institutions. Houle has received the Governor General’s Award for Visual and Media Arts (2015), the Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship, and the Toronto Arts Award. He is a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.

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