Bonnie Devine: Land in War 

September 28, 2024 - January 4, 2025

Bonnie Devine, Third Battle of Ypres, Passchendaele Belgium, 2024. Oil on canvas, 182.9 x 121.9 cm. Courtesy of the artist.

Bonnie Devine is a cross-disciplinary artist, writer, and educator whose work is deeply immersed in the storytelling and image making traditions central to Anishinaabe culture.

In this exhibition, Devine reflects on land and how its possession and control are at the heart of warfare through the stories of eight pivotal figures: three Victoria Cross recipients interred in Owen Sound, four Indigenous warriors who fought on various North American battlegrounds, and her father, who served with the Canadian army in Belgium and Holland in 1944. The exhibition includes delicate charcoal portraits of these individuals, coupled with expansive landscape paintings inspired by their actions, and smaller monoprint studies of each battle site.

During a time marked by escalating global conflicts, Devine’s work prompts reflection on colonialism’s tendency to incite violent conflict and the devastation it causes to both people and the natural world. The exhibition asks that we consider not only the harm the land has suffered because of these conflicts, but also its enduring resilience and beauty.

About the artist:

Bonnie Devine is a visual artist, writer, and educator. Born in Toronto and raised as an off-reserve member of the Anishinaabek of Serpent River First Nation, which is located on the north shore of Lake Huron, Devine’s work emerges from the storytelling and image making traditions that are at the root of Anishinaabe culture. Her cross-disciplinary practice combines written, sculptural, painted, and performative gestures to explore issues of land, treaty, and history. Though formally educated in sculpture and installation art at the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD U) and York University, Devine’s most enduring learning came from her grandparents, who were trappers on the Canadian Shield in northern Ontario. 

Devine’s installation and video works have been shown and collected nationally and internationally including by the Art Gallery of Ontario, the National Gallery of Canada, and the Smithsonian’s National Gallery of the American Indian. Recent acknowledgements of her practice include an Eiteljorg Fellowship Award in 2011, an Ontario Lieutenant Governor’s Heritage Award and OCAD University’s Distinguished Research/Creative Practice Award in 2019, and a Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts in 2021. She is an Associate Professor Emerita and the Founding Chair of the Indigenous Visual Culture program at the Ontario College of Art and Design University in Toronto. 

Affiliated programming:

Opening Reception - Saturday September 28, 2024 from 2:00pm to 4:00pm

Artist Talk - Saturday November 9, 2024, 11:00am to 12:00pm

Exhibition supported by: