Meryl McMaster: Bloodline at the McMaster Museum of Art
This past fall and into spring, the exhibition Meryl McMaster: Bloodline continues its tour with a presentation at the McMaster Museum of Art in Hamilton. The exhibition offers a comprehensive survey of the work of Meryl McMaster, one of Canada’s leading contemporary artists, whose photographic practice engages deeply with questions of ancestry, identity, and place.
Of Plains Cree and Métis, Dutch, and British heritage, McMaster is renowned for her large-scale meticulously staged photographs that weave personal history with broader cultural narratives. Bloodline brings together key works from her career, tracing her sustained exploration of family histories—particularly those of her Plains Cree female ancestors from Red Pheasant Cree Nation in present-day Saskatchewan.
Expanding beyond photography, Bloodline also includes two recent video works—Niwaniskân isi Kiya | I Awake to You, 2023, and Nipēhtēnān Kiteh | We Can Hear Your Heartbeat, 2023. They mark a significant development in McMaster’s practice, deepening her engagement with intergenerational memory, care, and relational responsibility.
Organized and circulated by the McMichael, Meryl McMaster: Bloodline underscores our ongoing commitment to presenting and touring scholarship-driven exhibitions that foreground Indigenous voices and advance the discourse of contemporary Canadian art.
Meryl McMaster: Bloodline is on view at the McMaster Museum of Art through March 6, 2026.
Reid Macfarlane, Exhibitions & Publications Assistant, McMichael Canadian Art Collection« M(M)A is the tour’s sixth venue, and it was touching to see both how many people turned out on one of the coldest nights of the year, as well as how meaningfully they then communed with the films and photographs. Betty Julian masterfully retained the show’s core themes while innovating new conversations between the artworks in the Museum’s spaces. Meryl introduced the show with the same thoughtfulness and dedication evident in her work, and she attentively received a long line of people who shared their appreciation, their impressions, and their stories late into the evening. It was an electrifying night. »
Meryl McMaster: Bloodline on view at the McMaster Museum of Art, Nov 2025 – Mar 2026. Photo by Darren Rigo.
Meryl McMaster: Bloodline on view at the McMaster Museum of Art, Nov 2025 – Mar 2026. Photo by Darren Rigo.
Meryl McMaster: Bloodline on view at the McMaster Museum of Art, Nov 2025 – Mar 2026. Photo by Darren Rigo.
Meryl McMaster: Bloodline on view at the McMaster Museum of Art, Nov 2025 – Mar 2026. Photo by Darren Rigo.
Reception for Meryl McMaster: Bloodline on view at the McMaster Museum of Art, Nov 2025 – Mar 2026.
Meryl McMaster speaking at the reception for Meryl McMaster: Bloodline on view at the McMaster Museum of Art, Nov 2025 – Mar 2026.
Reception for Meryl McMaster: Bloodline on view at the McMaster Museum of Art, Nov 2025 – Mar 2026.
Reception for Meryl McMaster: Bloodline on view at the McMaster Museum of Art, Nov 2025 – Mar 2026.
