This exhibition brings together works by the artist Kent Monkman in which water emerges as both the subject and the storyteller.
Across these works, Monkman reimagines colonial histories through indigenous perspectives, exploring stories of displacement, migration, and arrival carried by the waterways of Mi’kma’ki, across Turtle Island, and beyond.
Central to the exhibition is Miss Chief’s Wet Dream, the largest work ever produced by Monkman and the first in his practice to focus on a maritime theme. This monumental work was generously gifted to the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia by the Donald R. Sobey Foundation in 2018 and anchors the exhibition with its powerful scale and presence.
Accompanying the final painting, preparatory studies, drawings, and sketches reveal the layered and intricate process behind Monkman’s work. These materials offer visitors a glimpse into experimentation, revision, and exploration that shape the artist’s practice, showcasing the journey from initial
concepts to completed work.
Image: Kent Monkman, Miss Chief’s Wet Dream, 2018 Acrylic on canvas, 365.7 x 731.5 cm. Gift of Donald R. Sobey, Stellarton, Nova Scotia, 2019
Curated By: Fabiyino Germain-Bajowa, TD Curatorial Fellow
About the Artist:
Kent Monkman (b. 1965) is an interdisciplinary Cree visual artist. A member of Fisher River Cree Nation in Treaty 5 Territory (Manitoba, Canada), he lives and works between New York City and Toronto.
Known for his thought-provoking interventions into Western European and American art history, Monkman explores themes of colonization, sexuality, loss, and resilience—the complexities of historic and contemporary Indigenous experiences—across painting, film/video, performance, and installation. Monkman’s gender-fluid alter ego Miss Chief Eagle Testickle often appears in his work as a time-traveling, shape-shifting, supernatural being who reverses the colonial gaze to challenge received notions of history and Indigenous peoples.
Monkman’s artworks are held in the permanent collections of numerous institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Denver Art Museum; the Hirshhorn Museum; the Hood Museum of Art; the Heard Museum; Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal; the Glenbow Museum; the Art Gallery of Ontario; and macLYON. Private collections that house his works include Art Bridges; the Horseman Foundation; the Tia Collection, the Carl & Marilynn Thoma Foundation; Forge Project; the Gochman Family Collection; the Sobey Art Foundation; and the Rob & Monique Sobey Foundation. His works have been exhibited at institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal; Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal; the National Gallery of Canada; Royal Ontario Museum; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art; Hayward Gallery; Witte de With Centre for Contemporary Art; Musée d’art Contemporain de Rochechouart; the Philbrook Museum of Art; Palais de Tokyo; and the Hood Museum at Dartmouth College. Monkman has had two nationally touring solo exhibitions, Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience (2017-2020), and The Triumph of Mischief (2007-2010). In 2019, Monkman was commissioned as the inaugural artist to make two monumental paintings for The Met’s Great Hall Commission project. He has created other site-specific performances at the Royal Ontario Museum; Compton Verney, Warwickshire; and the Denver Art Museum.
Monkman’s short film and video works, collaboratively made with Gisèle Gordon, have screened at festivals such as the Berlinale (2007, 2008) and the Toronto International Film Festival (2007, 2015). Monkman and Gordon’s literary collaboration, The Memoirs of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle: A True and Exact Accounting of the History of Turtle Island was published in 2023. Monkman is the recipient of the Ontario Premier’s Award for Excellence in the Arts (2017), an honorary doctorate degree from OCAD University (2017), the Indspire Award (2014), and the Hnatyshyn Foundation Visual Arts Award (2014). In 2023, he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada—Canada’s highest civilian honour—and in 2025, he received the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts.
