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Current Exhibition 

If You Prick Me, Do I Not Bleed?

January 25 - March 30, 2024

Opening Reception January 25, 7 PM

Stacey Fayant, Marcy Friesen, Melanie Monique Rose, Mindy Yan Miller & Marcus Miller, Hanna Yokozawa Farquharson

Curated by Sandee Moore

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A needle pricks, pokes, and provokes. It also draws together and mends. This optimistic act of repairing defines the works, all created with needles, by the five Saskatchewan artists in this exhibition. In practices as diverse as embroidery, needle felting, beading, lacemaking, quilting and tattooing, artists Stacey Fayant, Marcy Friesen, Melanie Monique Rose, Mindy Yan Miller & Marcus Miller, and Hanna Yokozawa Farquharson invite audiences to share in experiences of otherness, pain, and healing. 

 

The visceral image of pricking with a needle as an appeal to recognize one's suffering and humanity is both the exhibition's process and subject. When we acknowledge the painful losses of language and culture, and the violent mechanisms of colonization, genocide, and environmental destruction, we recognize the humanity of those who have experienced this hurt. More than teaching us, artworks in this exhibition ask us to feel, awakening our empathy and ability to value others as equals. 

 

Through their stitches, artists in the exhibition invite us all to mend and heal relationships with the past, the self, others, and the environment, shaping a resilient social fabric.

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images: (clockwise from left) People With Face Tattoos Make Me Heal, Stacey Fayant, mixed media installation, dimensions vary, 2023 (photo: Jason Hipfner); We are all starring at the same moon, Melanie Monique Rose, felted wool, 16 inches; Lunar Waves, Hanna Yokozawa Farquharson, cotton, pins, cork, 24"x24"x7", 2023; Broken Hearted Grace, Marcy Friesen, digital photograph, dimensions vary, 2022, Six Million Stitches, Mindy Yan Miller, wool, human hair, 41/2" x 5 3/4" x 2", 2017 - ongoing.

Official Exhibition Sponsor

Opening Reception Sponsor

Antiracism & Multiculturalism Events funded by

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THANK YOU

Stacey Fayant recognizes the support of SK-Arts and Saskatchewan Foundation For the Arts which enabled her to produce artwork for this exhibition. 

Mindy Yan Miller recognizes the support of CUPFA to support her project, including a live performance, at the Art Gallery of Regina. 

This project is funded, in part, by the Government of Canada.

The Art Gallery of Regina is grateful to Neutral Ground Artist-run Centre for loaning us equipment to support this exhibition and to the Neil Balkwill Civic Arts Centre for the loan of an easel for this exhibition. 

Events

If You Prick Me, Do I Not Bleed? includes free public events. Additional events will be announced as funding is confirmed.

 

We invite our community to witness, support and celebrate cultural practices together within an inclusive framework of mutual care and understanding.

Six Million Stitches: a Performance by Mindy Yan Miller and Marcus Miller

DATE Saturday, January 27th
BEGINS AT 2:00 PM

This project has been made possible by the Government of Canada.

Sculpting Memory: Poetry and Paper Quilling with Tea Gerbeza
DATE February 4
TIME 2:00 - 4:00 PM 
PLACE Art Gallery of Regina

Healing Through Tattoos: A Conversation with Tattoo Artist Arielle Racette

DATE February 24

TIME 12 - 1 PM

PLACE Art Gallery of Regina

REGISTER ONLINE https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/healing-through-tattoos-a-conversation-with-arielle-racette-tickets-769323365897
NO COST

Learn More

People With Face Tattoos Make Me Heal: Live Skin Stitch Tattoo Performance with Stacey Fayant
DATE March 16th
TIME 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM
PLACE Art Gallery of Regina

REGISTER ONLINE https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/live-skin-stitch-tattoo-performance-with-stacey-fayant-tickets-796276383097
NO COST

This project has been made possible by the Government of Canada.

Learn More

Traditional Cultural Marks: Panel discussion of traditional cultural marks from around the world with guest Speakers Dr. Abisoye Eleshin, Lane Wilcken, Stacey Fayant, Dr. Tobias Sperlich
DATE March 17th
TIME 2:00 - 4:00 PM
PLACE Live-streamed video on the Art Gallery of Regina's YouTube Live channel, Facebook Live and Instagram

(Limited seating available at Art Gallery of Regina)
NO COST

This project has been made possible by the Government of Canada.

Learn More

Artists' Biographies

Hanna Yokozawa Farquharson

Hanna Yokozawa Farquharson moved from Japan in 2011 to reside in Saltcoats, Treaty 4 Territory, Saskatchewan. Inspired by quilting practices she observed in her new community, she began making textile art blending imagery from rural Saskatchewan with Japanese aesthetic qualities of Wabi-Sabi.

She is deeply spiritual and finds a wholeness in the chaotic universe around us all. This is an anchor of her being and of her art. 

In Japan, there is a culture of respect and deep awe for nature. It is believed in much of Japanese spirituality that there are eight million gods (spirits) within nature. We humans are a part of nature, and all living things have life — beautiful mountains and rivers, flowers and trees, stones, clouds and even the wind all have spirits. This spirituality is the foundation of her work.

Her art seeks peacefulness in life and to appreciate the ephemeral nature of beauty. Her gentle approach creates a sense of peace and calm in the viewer.

Her art is held in the SK-Arts Permanent Collection; in 2021 Yokozawa Farquarson was nominated for the SK-Arts Awards Emerging Artists Award. Her solo exhibition Calling is traveling to venues throughout Saskatchewan in a tour supported by OSAC tour until 2024. Yokozawa Farquarson’s artworks have been selected by national and international juried competitions and are widely held in both public and private collections. 

 

Melanie Monique Rose

Melanie Monique Rose is a Metis/Ukrainian visual artist from Regina, Saskatchewan Treaty 4 Territory, a citizen of the Metis Nation of Saskatchewan, and a long-time contributing member of Sâkêwêwak Artists’ Collective Inc. Rose’s work centres on kinship and relationships between the land, ourselves and each other. Through plants and flowers Rose invites transmissions of ancestral knowledge and teachings while also imagining and creating a de-colonial future through the lens of Metis worldviews.

She attended Kootenay School of the Arts with a major in the Fibre Arts in Nelson, B.C. Rose has exhibited her artwork in both group and solo exhibitions. Most recently she is exhibited in the group show, Storied Objects/Metis Art in Relation at the Remai Modern in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Her greatest honor was to receive the distinction of Excellence in Textiles from the Saskatchewan Craft Council in Dimension's 2013 touring show. 

In 2020, Melanie was named a CBC Future 40 for her work in arts and culture. In addition, she was one of seven artists awarded the Saskatchewan Foundation for the Arts Endowment Award to further artistic pursuits in 2021. In 2023 she was honored with the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal from His Honour the Honourable Russ Mirasty Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan for her work in Arts & Reconciliation. Rose has worked in Saskatchewan as gallery facilitator, story-keeper, and art instructor for the MacKenzie Art Gallery and in addition teaches various workshops at both public and private institutions.

In 2018 her daughter Meadow Rose was born and is currently a full-time mom, caregiver, and artist. Becoming a mother has increased Rose’s desire to share the stories of her culture and family and has challenged the way she creates independently and as a shared experience with her daughter. Rose is inspired and excited to see where the journey takes her as an Artist. 

 

Stacey Fayant

Stacey Fayant works in various media including tattoo, wool, fabric, beading, printmaking, and painting. She is Metis, Cree, Saulteaux and French and a member of Peepeekisis First Nation.

She received a Bachelor of Fine Art in Printmaking and Painting and a Bachelor of Art in Women’s Studies from the University of Regina, in 2002 and 2004.  Her art practice explores identity, history keeping, and community. Stacey has been angry since childhood, noticing early in life the daily racism and harms due to colonization (she didn't refer to colonization as a child, but did understand the history that led to the racism inflicted upon herself and her loved ones). Out of that anger, her art practice seeks to heal her loved ones, but also heal the larger community she lives in and find ways to invite people to open their minds and hearts and reconcile.

Having utilized body modification as self-therapy Stacey became interested in how personal aesthetics relate to identity and self-valuation. She then became aware of tattooing traditions practiced in North America and she felt a pull to learn more and become involved in helping reinvigorate Indigenous tattooing.

 

Mindy Yan Miller

Mindy Yan Miller’s installations, sculpture and performative pieces investigate labour, identity, loss and commodification. Primarily a material and medium-based practice, Yan Miller often works with large masses of potent materials including used clothing, human hair, coke cans and most recently cowhides.

 

Her performative works draw attention to the intimate gestures involved in making. They are frequently stitch-based and developed and enacted collaboratively. The work in this exhibit, created and performed with Marcus Miller, draws elements from two collaborative Holocaust memorial pieces; Six Million Stitches: Austria 66,000, originally performed on the streets of Vienna, and Needle and Thread, a collaborative dance work with Suzanne Miller (dance) and Allan Paivio (sound) and various guests.

 

Yan Miller’s work has been exhibited in Canada, Europe and United States since the mid-eighties including Mercer Union, YYZ and Loop Gallery in Toronto, Optica, B-312 and La Centrale in Montreal, The Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Latitude 53 and Stride Gallery in Alberta and the Dunlop Art Gallery, Moose Jaw Museum and Art Gallery and the Western Development Museum in Saskatchewan and Art in General (NYC), Hallwalls (Buffalo) and Artspace (Raleigh NC) in the United States and W139 (Amsterdam), Galerie Schleifmühlgasse 12-14 (Vienna) and the Artforum Berlin in Europe. She has been the recipient of numerous grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Quebec Arts Council and the Saskatchewan Arts Board. Yan Miller recently moved to Montreal from Saskatoon where she regularly teaches in Fibres and Material Practices at Concordia University.

 

Marcus Miller

Marcus Miller has worked across Canada and internationally as a curator, teacher, critic and artist. He was Director of the Gordon Snelgrove Gallery from 2011—19, and more recently, under a gallery amalgamation as the Curator of Public Programming and Participation. He holds an MA in the Social History of Art from Leeds University and a BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University. He has taught courses in the history, theory and practice of modern and contemporary art at Carlton University, Concordia University and the University of Saskatchewan. He publishes critical reviews and articles with a number of journals including: Canadian Art, BlackFlash, BorderCrossings, Galleries West among others. Marcus was Artistic Director at SAW Gallery (Ottawa) and Director of the Allan Sapp Gallery in North Battleford, where he curated an exhibition entitled: PORTRAITS: PAINTING, FACE-PULLING AND STORYTELLING, before accepting a position as Assistant Curator at the Art Gallery of Alberta in 2006. He was the art critic at the Montreal HOUR and Montreal Correspondent for Contemporary Magazine in London, England. 

 

Marcy Friesen

Marcy Friesen is of Swampy Cree and Welsh ancestry and currently resides on a mixed farm with her family near Carrot River, SK. She comes from a long line of traditional beaders and talented creative family members. Friesen has always felt the need to create, and started her career with a small business making utilitarian objects such as mitts, jewelry and moccasins. After visiting a Contemporary Art Gallery in 2019, Friesen added her practice to experimenting with an artisanal craftsmanship that exists outside the traditional spectrum of beauty and utility. Threading through beads, leather, and furs, Friesen draws the viewer into an intimate experience using her honed skills and intuitive sensibilities toward material, color, and presentation. In Friesen’s practice, the natural and synthetic come together in ways that are inclusive of the contemporary condition, transforming ways of understanding and expectations of cultural production. Friesen uses her beads, leather and furs in new ways, opening discussions on mental health and racism.

Self-guided Tour Pamphlet

Exhibition Audio Tour

Thank you to SaskTel for sponsoring Audio Tours of our exhibitions

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Exhibition Audio Tour Transcript

Media Coverage

Moore, Sandee, "If You Prick Me, Do I Not Bleed?." Saskatchewan Weekend, hosted by Shauna Powers, aired January 27, 2024. https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-205-saskatchewan-weekend/clip/16038336-if-you-prick-me-do-i-not-bleed

 

Rose, Melanie Monique, "Melanie Monique Rose featured in Art Gallery of Regina show." Saskatchewan Weekend, hosted by Shauna Powers, aired January 27, 2024. https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-205-saskatchewan-weekend/clip/16038337-melanie-monique-rose-featured-art-gallery-regina-show

"Three Show Picks for Jan. 25: We head to Toronto, Prince George and Regina." Galleries West, February 5, 2024. https://www.gallerieswest.ca/magazine/stories/three-show-picks-for-jan-25/

Moore, Sandee, “What's Happening at the Art Gallery of Regina.” Talk of the Town, hosted by Lisa Peters, February 15-20, 2024.

Moore, Sandee, "On the Go: Art Gallery of Regina: We head #OnTheGo to the Art Gallery of Regina to check out their latest exhibition." On the Go, reported by Kayleen Sawatzky, February 22, 2024. https://regina.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=2871852

The Art Gallery of Regina gratefully acknowledges its core funders and community sponors.

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