This touring exhibition surveys Meryl McMaster’s photographic explorations of selfhood, ancestry, and memory. Reflecting her Plains Cree/Métis, Dutch, and British heritage, McMaster’s dreamlike images and recent video works trace matrilineal histories, connecting land and identity across generations.

Meryl McMaster, Remember The Sky You Were Born Under, 2022. Giclée print, 101.6 x 152.4 cm. Courtesy of the artist, Stephen Bulger Gallery, and Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain.

Meryl McMaster: Bloodline

November 25, 2025 – March 6, 2026
Opening Reception: TBD (January 2026)
McMaster Museum of Art, Hamilton

Meryl McMaster: Bloodline is a survey exhibition of a remarkable Canadian artist whose large-scale photographic works reflect her mixed Plains Cree/Métis, Dutch, and British ancestry. This exhibition looks back to McMaster’s past accomplishments and brings us up to date on her current explorations of family histories, in particular those of her Plains Cree female forebears from the Red Pheasant Cree Nation in present-day Saskatchewan.

“My work can be described as this formative self-portrait, dream-like imagery. I usually explore themes around self and identity and how we form our sense of self through land, lineage, history, and culture.” – Meryl McMaster.

The exhibition features photographs across six bodies of work, evoking themes of memory, containment, erasure, and self-determination. McMaster’s most recent series, Stories of My Grandmothers (2022-2023), highlights the artist’s deep reckoning with her family’s history focusing on the lives and experiences of her great great-grandmother Mathilda “Tilly” Schmidt, great-grandmother Isabella “Bella” Wuttunee, and grandmother Lena McMaster.

In dialogue with McMaster’s large-scale photographs, the exhibition includes two recent video-based works titled Niwaniskân isi Kiya | I Awake to You (2023) and Nipēhtēnān Kiteh | We Can Hear Your Heartbeat (2023).

Curated by Sarah Milroy, Frances and Tim Price Executive Director and Chief Curator, McMichael Canadian Art Collection and Tarah Hogue, Adjunct Curator (Indigenous Art), Remai Modern.

Organized and circulated by the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in partnership with Remai Modern.

About the Artist

Meryl McMaster is nêhiyaw from Red Pheasant Cree Nation, a member of the Siksika Nation, and has Métis, Niitsitapi (Blackfoot), British and Dutch ancestry. Her work is predominantly photography-based, incorporating the production of props, sculptural garments and performance, forming a synergy that transports the viewer out of the ordinary and into a space of contemplation and introspection.

McMaster is the recipient of the Scotiabank New Generation Photography Award, the REVEAL Indigenous Art Award, Charles Pachter Prize for Emerging Artists, the Canon Canada Prize, the Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship, the OCAD U Medal and was long listed for the 2016 Sobey Art Award.

Her work has been acquired by various public collections within Canada and the United States, including the Canadian Museum of History, the Art Gallery of Ontario, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Eiteljorg Museum, the National Museum of the American Indian, the Ottawa Art Gallery, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada.

Her work has been included in exhibitions throughout Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, including the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American Indian, the Art Gallery of Ontario, Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art, the Eiteljorg Museum, the Ottawa Art Gallery, the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, the Mendel Art Gallery and the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria.

About McMaster Museum of Art

The McMaster Museum of Art is a meeting space for both the University campus and the community situated within the traditional territories of the Mississauga and the Haudenosaunee nations. The M(M)A engages and inspires through arts presentation and promotion, as well as by: growing an awareness of the interconnectivity of the past, present and future; advancing de-colonization; engaging in innovative and imaginative research; dismantling institutional and ideological boundaries; partnering and collaborating with intentionality; diversifying the collection; and building capacity.

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Thursday: 12pm – 7pm
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Jeff Jung Sing Chow
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