Michelle Sound’s work explores personal and familial narratives with a consideration of Indigenous artistic processes. Her works explore cultural identities and histories by engaging materials and concepts within a contemporary context. Through utilizing such practices as drum making, caribou hair tufting, beadwork, painting and photography, her work highlights that acts of care and joy are situated in family and community. She works with traditional and contemporary materials and techniques to explore maternal labour, identity,and cultural knowledges.
Photo by Sweetmoon Photography
Michelle Sound is a Cree and Métis artist and mother. She is a member of Wapsewsipi Swan River First Nation in Treaty 8 Territory, Northern Alberta where her mother is from, her father’s family is from the Buffalo Lake and Kikino Métis settlements in central Alberta, Treaty 6 territory. She was born and raised on the unceded and ancestral home territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. 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.
Sound is a multidisciplinary visual artist and her art practice includes a variety of mediums including photo based work, textiles, painting and Indigenous material practices. Her artwork often explores her Cree and Métis identity from a personal experience rooted in family, place and history. She works with traditional and contemporary materials and techniques to explore maternal labour, identity, cultural knowledge, and cultural inheritances.
Public art pieces include a printed Transit mural (City of Edmonton),a painted mural at Ociciwan Art Centre (Edmonton) and a printed mural at the Canadian Embassy in Paris.
She has completed artist residencies at the Burrard Arts Foundation(2022), the Indigenous Arts Intensive at UBC Okanagan(2023-24) and the Banff Centre for the Arts(2024). Her work is held in numerous private, corporate and institutional collections including the the Burnaby Art Gallery, Indigenous Art Centre (CIRNAC)., Forge Project NY, the McMichael Collection and the National Gallery of Canada.
She has had recent solo and two person exhibitions at Neutral Ground ARC (Regina), Daphne Art Centre (Montréal), Alternator (Kelowna), Gallery 101 (Ottawa), Burrard Arts Foundation, Nanaimo Art Gallery Grunt Gallery and Seymour Art Gallery (Vancouver). Recent group exhibitions include the Burnaby Art Gallery, Richmond Art Gallery, Audain Art Museum(Whistler) and BACA (Montreal). Upcoming exhibitions include Diana Gallery (New York City), Latitude 53 (Edmonton), and the Art Gallery of South Western Manitoba.
May 20 - July 8, 2023
'LIVE THROUGH THIS' explores personal and familial narratives with a consideration of Indigenous artistic processes.