![]() ![]() ![]() Monkman completed the 35 new works with the help of 20 staff, including 10 assistant painters and long-time collaborator Gisèle Gordon. The paintings show, with Monkman’s characteristic cheek and audacity, how Indigenous teachings have been passed down since the beginning of the cosmos, and how knowledge keepers-Indigenous artists, historians, professors and activists-kept those traditions alive during genocidal colonial settlement. In Being Legendary, Monkman tells the origin story of his two-spirit alter ego-the fabulous, gender-fluid, shape-shifting Miss Chief Eagle Testickle-as she travels through history in her signature sky-high heels, from the Mesozoic era to the colonial period to the present day. The artist has also incorporated his own interpretations of legendary beings from Cree mythology: wîsahkêcâhk, a trickster who takes the form of a coyote mîmîkwîsiwak, four-inch-tall people piyêsiwak, thunder beings depicted as rainbow-coloured flying reptiles and misipisiwak, water-dwelling lynx that resemble triceratops. The title is a reference to how knowledge is passed down through oral storytelling, or legends. The artist’s latest exhibition, Being Legendary, showing at the Royal Ontario Museum until March 2023, is a Monkmanian masterpiece. His work is politically charged, distilling sharp historical critiques into vivid, beautiful tableaux. Monkman is best known for his large-scale acrylic-on-canvas works, which challenge colonial depictions of history by placing Indigenous characters front and centre, often using humour for maximum impact. He had a career-crowning exhibit at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2019, his Picton home was recently featured in Architectural Digest and his larger pieces often fetch up to six figures. Whether Monkman believes it or not, he’s cemented his place in art world superstardom. “I think it’s actually Céline Dion,” he says with a laugh at his studio in Toronto’s west end. Cree painter Kent Monkman is widely considered to be the most famous artist in Canada, but he doesn’t seem to agree. ![]()
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