Get To Know Shelley Niro
“To get to me, you have to have a combination of the contemporary, historical and personal.”
—Shelley Niro
Shelley Niro: 500 Year Itch is the first major retrospective of work by the multimedia artist Shelley Niro, who grew up on the Six Nations Reserve, near Brantford, Ontario.
This exhibition marks the first time that visitors will be able to see Niro’s work on this scale, as they are led through her exceptional artistic expression of important contemporary issues, Haudenosaunee histories and symbolism.¹
Here are 5 things you should know about Shelley Niro before your visit:
1. Shelley Niro’s first subjects were her family.
Shelley Niro, The Rebel, 1987/2022, hand tinted gelatin silver print, Courtesy of the Artist
Long before graduating from the Ontario College of Art in 1990, Shelley Niro turned to artmaking to express her worldview and honed her skills as a photographer walking around her Six Nations community with a camera. Her family and friends became some of her most important collaborators, appearing in many significant works.
Niro’s iconic work The Rebel (1987/2022) was made on the spur of the moment, when she asked her mother, Chiquita, to pose for a photo. The artist remembers, “I said let me take a picture of you, Mom. So she jumped on the car and posed like that.” The rest is history.
Niro has frequently photographed her female family members: her mother, daughters, sisters, nieces and granddaughter. In doing so, she honours the Haudenosaunee system of matriarchy, which traces ancestry through the mother’s family. She also challenges stereotypical representations of female beauty, Indigenous beauty in particular.
2. Shelley Niro’s works sometimes draw upon ancestral memories of homelands.
Shelley Niro, 1779, 2017, mixed media sculpture with video, velvet, beads, stiletto heels, Art Gallery of Hamilton, Gift of the Women’s Art Association of Hamilton, 2018
Shelley Niro was born in 1954 in Niagara Falls, New York, and raised on the Six Nations Reserve near the town of Brantford, Ontario. Historically a spiritual site for Haudenosaunee peoples, Niagara Falls also held great importance during the winter of 1779, when survivors of George Washington’s violent campaign against the Haudenosaunee sought shelter at nearby Fort Niagara. The Falls hold a special place in Niro’s heart, even though today, as a popular tourist destination, they are far removed in the mainstream imagination from their history.
Niro’s installation 1779 (2017)—which combines video, sculpture and beadwork—commemorates the site while engaging with its current superficiality, exemplified by the high heels as symbols of fetishized femininity. Strands of beads resemble cascading waterfalls. Beauty, nature and artificiality are intertwined here in Niro’s critique of what the Falls have become.
“To me, it just looks like chaos and conflict,” the artist says. “So you get this beautiful Niagara Falls sitting on top of the chaos and conflict set around. […] It’s just a big toe in the water of history.”
3. Shelley Niro uses the tools of theatre and storytelling to critique history and modern life with humour and playfulness.
Shelley Niro, 500 Year Itch, 1992, gelatin silver print heightened with applied colour, mounted on Masonite, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa Gift of Victoria Henry, Ottawa, 2003
“If you can create work that people are amused by, maybe something will make them think a little bit more about something.” —Shelley Niro
Using elements of irony and wit, Niro reflects upon important moments in the history of Indigenous-settler relationships. Her strategy is consistent but not overwrought.
In 500 Year Itch (1992), from which the exhibition takes its title, Niro poses coyly for the camera in a blonde wig and white dress, recreating one of the most famous scenes in movie history—replacing Marilyn Monroe’s drafty subway grate with an overturned desk fan.
This photograph’s title also plays with the film’s title, The Seven Year Itch (1955), which refers to the idea that divorce rates peak in the seventh year of marriage. Created in 1992, Niro’s work also makes a wry comment on the 500-year anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ “discovery” of the Americas.
As the artist explains, “So it’s like the marriage between native people and the colonizers. Are we going to stick with this or what are we going to do? How [are we] going to resolve the issues that have showed up in these last 500 years?”
After 500 years of ensuing colonization, Niro feels that itch: she remains uncomfortable with what settler culture has brought to, and destroyed of, Indigenous cultures. Throughout the exhibition, Niro insists upon the healing and regenerative powers of art and laughter.
4. Shelley Niro’s work deconstructs preconceived notions of Indigenous identity, emphasizing the relationship between stereotyping, the construction of history and the erasure of culture.
Shelley Niro, Abnormally Aboriginal, 2014–17, colour Inkjet prints on canvas, Courtesy of the Artist
“I was more interested in work that would not necessarily be seen as Native art, although it was from a Native artist’s perspective.” —Shelley Niro
Niro’s artwork is centred on Kanyen’kehaka philosophies, deep understandings of history and a woman-centred worldview. Her paintings, photography and films challenge representations of Indigenous peoples in Canadian culture. Through her captivating imagery, Niro draws attention to the immeasurable damages of colonialism and explores pathways to a more equitable and just future.
As co-curator Melissa Bennett writes: “Her messages are revealed when viewers realize what she is exploring. This is the classic Niro strategy: to teach history, advocate for empathy and offer possibilities for learning and reconciliation—peppered sometimes with humour, sass, and always with care.”
5. Shelley Niro is a champion of Indigenous women and girls.
Shelley Niro, Ancestors from the series M: Stories of Women, 2011, colour inkjet print, Courtesy of the Artist, National Museum of the American Indian 27/064
Kanyen’kehá:ka peoples, as part of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy, are a matriarchal system. Women are looked to for leadership and guidance. The origins of this lead back to the story of Sky Woman: a pregnant woman who fell through a hole in the Sky World to Turtle Island, our earth; Sky Woman and the daughter she bore were the first to live upon it.
As co-curator Melissa Bennett writes, one of the leading themes throughout Shelley Niro’s work is “her heartfelt intention to empower women and girls” and the wider political statement: “Indigenous women can be strong, funny and can behave however they wish, even in the face of oppression.”
Throughout Niro’s career, she has critiqued the patriarchal structure of our modern world that confines and undermines women’s power and leadership, advocating for self-representation and sovereignty in the face of the enduring impact of colonial wars and the intergenerational trauma of being displaced from home territories. Yet she eases hard truths with playfulness, complexity and wit.
Scan the QR codes throughout the exhibition during your visit to hear the artist speak to her work as part of the exhibition audio guide.
FURTHER READING:
Melissa Bennett, “Shelley Niro: Empowerment, Persistence, Love and Care,” June 20, 2024, in National Gallery of Canada Magazine
Chris Hampton, “Get to know the big-hearted, sharp-witted art of Shelley Niro with these 6 works,” May 24, 2024, in CBC Arts
