When the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) opens Faye HeavyShield: Issokawo’taan on Saturday, August 16, 2025, it will mark the Toronto debut of one of Canada’s most influential contemporary artists. The exhibition brings together three immersive installations, including the restaging of Venus as Torpedo, a multimedia sculptural work not shown since 1995.

HeavyShield, winner of the 2021 Gershon Iskowitz Prize at the AGO, is celebrated for her quiet yet commanding approach to artmaking. For more than five decades, she has woven together sculpture, installation, sound, text, and drawing in works that resist categorisation. A member of the Blackfoot Confederacy from the Kainai (Blood) Nation in southern Alberta, she grounds her practice in language, memory, and land. “Blackfoot is my first language,” she explains. “Art is my second.” The exhibition title, Issokawo’taan, is her Blackfoot name.

A Restaged Landmark Work

At the heart of the exhibition is Venus as Torpedo (1996/2025). Rising low against the gallery wall, its rib-like wooden frame is cloaked in garments dyed a deep red ochre, each piece contributed by loved ones. From within, a chorus of women’s voices—some in English, some in Blackfoot—emerges in hushed tones, encouraging visitors to lean in closer. The work embodies themes of resilience, femininity, and collective memory.

Alongside Venus as Torpedo, the exhibition presents I will know when I see you (2021–ongoing), a constellation of drawings and texts arranged directly on the wall, and adrift (2025), a suspended installation animated by sunlight and air. Together, these works fill three gallery spaces on Level 2 of the AGO’s J.S. McLean Centre for Indigenous and Canadian Art, offering an intimate journey through language, form, and story.

Rooted in Place, Resonant Across Time

Curator Georgiana Uhlyarik, the AGO’s Fredrik S. Eaton Curator of Canadian Art, describes HeavyShield’s work as both deeply rooted and strikingly contemporary. “Her art evokes place, community, and history while extending across time. It asks us to reconsider what art can be and what it can hold.”

Born in 1953 in Stand Off, Alberta, HeavyShield studied at the Alberta College of Art and Design and has exhibited widely across Canada. Her works are held in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada, the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, and the Glenbow Museum, among others.

Exhibition Details

Faye HeavyShield: Issokawo’taan runs until February 22, 2026. Admission is always free for Indigenous Peoples, Ontarians under 25, AGO Members, and Annual Pass holders. Visitors can also join a special conversation with HeavyShield and Uhlyarik on Saturday, September 6, 2025.

Organised by the AGO in partnership with the Gershon Iskowitz Foundation, the exhibition underscores the museum’s commitment to supporting Indigenous voices and advancing contemporary art in Canada.