Artist Talk by Ruth Cuthand

In this online artist talk, Ruth Cuthand will speak about her multidisciplinary art practice, including her work currently on exhibition at the Doris McCarthy Gallery as part of the group exhibition Ornamental Gestures.

Ruth Cuthand is a mixed media artist of Plains Cree and Scottish ancestry, whose practice includes painting, drawing, photography and beadwork. Through her powerful aesthetics balancing political invective and humour, her work challenges mainstream perspectives of colonialism and relationships between settlers and Indigenous people. Her work is featured in many collections, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario and the MacKenzie Art Gallery. In 2013, she was recognized with a Lieutenant Governor’s Arts Award. Ruth Cuthand lives and works in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

This talk is free and open to the public, all are welcome. It will be hosted on Zoom with captions. If you have other accommodation needs, please let us know through the registration form or contact dmg.utsc@utoronto.ca. After registering, attendees will be provided with a Zoom link to join the talk virtually.

U of T Scarborough students attending for course credit should register through CLNx rather than Eventbrite. See https://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/acm/upcoming-events for more details.

This talk is part of the Visiting Artist Lecture Series, co-presented by the Doris McCarthy Gallery & Studio Art program, Department of Arts, Culture & Media, University of Toronto Scarborough. This semester's series addresses Indigenous sovereignty, a long-established statement of Indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination. By working towards autonomy and recognition as sovereign authority of the land, Indigenous sovereignty works to undo colonial narratives and assumptions of land ownership here in what is now called Canada. Each of us play a role in this goal, with much of the work beginning in an education on what Indigenous sovereignty looks like and how we can work towards it. For VALS 2022-2023, we will learn from Indigenous artists on how this work is manifested through their respective practices.