The Métis artist discusses using family photo albums to explore her identity in new exhibition

A stroll through the latest exhibition in the AGO’s J.S. McLean Centre for Indigenous + Canadian Art is an intimate experience, almost like you’re walking through a family photo album or a personal journal. That’s because, in a sense, you are. Portraits of Desire features 22 photographs and three oil paintings by Métis artist Rosalie Favell. With the works on view spanning 24 years of her portfolio, Favell’s solo exhibition highlights her career-long diaristic exploration of sexual and Métis identity.

Illustrating Favell’s personal approach to photography, this exhibition features works incorporating Favell’s family photo albums, self-portraits, and the artist’s own handwriting brought together in her signature collage style. The exhibition also features three oil-painted self-portraits of Favell, which were recreated from earlier photography work.

Favell’s collage technique began with I Dreamed of Being a Warrior (1999) (image at top), currently on view in this exhibition. After being taught Photoshop by a friend, Favell collaged her head onto the body of Xena from the TV show Xena Warrior Princess.

“I was a ‘straight’ photographer in that I learned photography formally and for me, the idea of defacing an image was problematic,” she said. “But in this work, I took a leap and started collaging on the computer. That opened a whole new world for me.” Read more, in this week’s Foyer profile, linked HERE.