Image: Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton
Organized by the Art Gallery of Alberta and curated by Alaynee Goodwill-Littlechild, the exhibition brings together works by Wally Dion, Bob Boyer, Renee Condo, Tamara Lee-Anne Cardinal, Brian Jungen, Dean Drever, Susan Point and others.
‘What Shapes Us’ explores Indigenous abstraction as a dynamic and evolving visual language. Through repetition and pattern, the artists transform familiar forms into works that invite new ways of seeing. These works create meaning through the relationships between shape and space.
Across diverse media, including textiles, sculpture, beadwork, carving and installation, repeated gestures become acts of accumulation and transformation. The exhibition page identifies Wally Dion’s ‘Antidote’ from 2025 as a work made with fabric and embroidery.
Rather than asking viewers to search for a single meaning, the exhibition encourages close observation. It invites viewers to consider how repetition, pattern and abstraction shape the way they experience movement, material, memory and form.
Each iteration builds upon what came before, demonstrating that Indigenous abstraction is rooted in enduring artistic traditions and continually evolving through contemporary practice.
