The Latest Exhibit at Remai Modern: An Indigenous artist’s career in retrospect.

Born in Niagara Falls, New York, in 1954, Shelley Niro is a multidisciplinary artist and member of the Kanyen’kehà:ka (Mohawk) Nation from the Six Nations of the Grand River territory. 

Niro is well-established as an activist dedicated to challenging stereotypes and advocating for the self-representation and sovereignty of Indigenous peoples. Her prolific portfolio includes painting, photography, film, sculpture, beadwork and mixed-media pieces. Known for her humour and love for popular culture, her work is an accessible goldmine of priceless cultural knowledge and history about the Mohawk Nation and Indigeneity in the modern world. 

Her art has been displayed and awarded around the world. Her first feature film, Kissed by Lightning, premiered at Toronto’s imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival in 2009, and won the Santa Fe Film Festival’s Milagro Award for Best Indigenous Film that same year. Another one of her films, The Shirt, was presented at the Venice Biennale in 2003 and the Sundance Film Festival in 2004. Her film portfolio includes her other works like Honey Moccasin, Café Daughter and It Starts with a Whisper.  

500 Year Itch is the first large-scale retrospective exhibition of Niro’s art, with four decades of her work on display. Featuring works spanning from her early student work to more recent creations by the artist, it truly allows for a glimpse into the journey of such a prolific artist and how her work has evolved. It highlights themes that Niro has favoured throughout her career, with sections titled: “Matriarchy,”  “Past is Present,” “Actors,” and “Family Relations.” 

Known for her sense of humour, dedication to feminism, and use of spirituality as a tool to examine identity, Niro creates windows into issues that her audience might not be privy to. Her use of empathy moves her audience and allows them to understand the subject both personally and politically. Throughout her career, Niro has worked to represent Indigenous women and girls, as well as issues that plague Indigenous communities on a larger scale, in a way that’s accessible and understandable to people from all walks of life.

500 Year Itch is a powerful journey through Niro’s career and Indigenous history, offering a bold, engaging look at identity and resilience through her multidisciplinary storytelling. The exhibit features nearly forty years’ worth of art—some works part of an ongoing series, totalling close to 130 pieces—drawn from both public and private collections across Canada and the United States, including select works from the National Gallery of Canada. It’s an experience that invites its viewers into Niro’s world, where her discerning cultural insights and sharp wit really shine through.

Niro’s work crosses genres and disciplines, offering her audience a modern perspective on vast history and culture in tandem with personal narratives. She evokes empathy and understanding through relatable images that allude to the deep wounds that still ache within Indigenous communities across Turtle Island. 

The exhibition has been making its way across five venues across the continent, with Remai Modern as the final stop. It is a celebration of Niro’s unique voice as both an advocate and artist, and the many forms her craft takes, from photography and painting to film, video, printmaking and beadwork.

What stands out most in her work is the way she blends personal narratives with cultural history. Many of the pieces highlight the experiences of Indigenous women and girls, often examining the complexities of Mohawk culture, representation and the strength of matriarchy. She invites viewers to think about how gender roles and stereotypes have been imposed on Indigenous communities by patriarchal settler culture while celebrating the beauty and resilience of Haudenosaunee traditions, such as through her interpretation of the story of Skywoman.

Despite the varying scales of her work, Niro always brings a sense of immenseness to everything she does. Whether it’s through her large-scale pieces, her more intimate ones, or through her filmmaking, each of her works seems to demand attention, evoking empathy and reflection from all who witness it. And while this exhibition is filled with moments of celebration and joy, it doesn’t shy away from the threads of resistance and resilience that run throughout her career, and through her experience as an Indigenous woman.

500 Year Itch encourages viewers to engage deeply with Niro’s playful yet profound commentary on the lived experiences of Indigenous women and communities. It’s a show that pulls you in, offering both an intellectual and emotional journey through Niro’s perspective on culture, history and identity.

The exhibit is organized and circulated by the Art Gallery of Hamilton with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian and curatorial support from the National Gallery of Canada, curated by Melissa Bennett, Greg Hill and David Penney. The Remai Modern’s organizing Curator is Sally Frater.

Remai Modern is the exhibit’s final stop on its five-venue tour across the country, so be sure to visit the museum while this incredible installation is open!