Remai Modern Showcases Shelley Niro: 500 Year Itch

An acclaimed artist, touring her major career retrospective, has made Saskatoon the final stop on her extensive tour.

Shelley Niro is a multi-disciplinary artist born in Niagara Falls, New York, who currently lives in Brantford Ontario, and is a member of the Turtle Clan of the Kanyen’kehà:ka (Mohawk) Nation. Her career retrospective, Shelley Niro: 500 Year Itch, is currently exhibiting at Remai Modern until September 21.

It’s the final stop in a tour that started at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in New York, and included stops at the National Gallery in Ottawa, Art Gallery of Hamilton, and the Vancouver Art Gallery.

“It’s like opening a memory box. Some of the work was done 40 years ago, and you never think of it as hanging in such a magnificent place as the National Gallery,” Niro told Eagle Feather News.

“It reminds you of why you made the work – when I couldn’t even afford colour processing for my photos. So it’s an amazing feeling seeing the work presented in all these great venues,” said Niro.

500 Year Itch encapsulates Niro’s remarkably eclectic career, with almost 70 pieces spanning four decades of her photography, film, painting, installation, sculpture, mixed media, and beadwork.

In her work, Niro examines the representation of Indigenous people, the experiences of Indigenous women and girls, Mohawk culture, and matriarchy, intertwined in personal stories that evoke both empathy and humour.

“We need empathy now more than ever. It’s what the world should be striving for. With how hardcore people can be against each other, it’s like shining a light in shadowy places,” said Niro.

“And humour – it can make someone take an extra second to look at the work, to understand the message in it. I don’t want to be a comedian artist, but humour does bubble up and erupt into some of the work.”

Growing up, Niro and her siblings were immersed in creativity, entertaining each other with storytelling, drawings, plays, and songs. In her post-secondary education, she dove even more deeply into her creativity, studying performing arts at Cambrian College, fine arts at the Ontario College of Art, and received a Master of Fine Arts at the University of Western Ontario. She also studied film at the Banff Centre for the Arts.

“I was always told in school to stick to one thing and expand on that. I always found that a bit boring,” said Niro.

“I always thought – I’m an artist, why would I want to stay with the same thing my entire life? If I’m doing photography, by the time I’m done working on that series I’m ready to do something else.”

The title of her retrospective, 500 Year Itch, references the 1955 Marilyn Monroe film, The Seven Year Itch. In a photo in her exhibit, Niro recreates the famous scene in which Monroe’s dress blows up from an underfoot air vent – with Niro interpreting it through her own unique perspective.

It’s part of a series called This Land is Mime Land, where she challenges colonial identities through pop culture references, like Elvis Presley and Santa Claus alongside Monroe.

“I like to make work that will give me an opportunity to look at something a little bit more, a little bit deeper than what I’m used to seeing or hearing,” said Niro.

It’s one of her many artworks that challenges typical representations of Indigenous people.

“I hope to create art that, for people who don’t know Indigenous people, feel like they can now approach Indigenous people.”

With a career retrospective scheduled to wind-up this fall, Niro said he has no intention of sitting back and relaxing. She’s going to continue to create based on what inspires her, and in turn, hopes to inspires a new generation of artists.

“I want my work to feed energy into young people, to make them say ‘I can do this’,” said Niro. “I find it such a gift given to me by an artist who creates something that gives me energy. I want young people to look at my art, be energized by it, and think they can go out and concur the world.”