Bonnie Devine | |
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Born | Bonnie Devine April 12, 1952 Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
Nationality | Serpent River First Nation, Canadian |
Known for | Installation artist, performance artist, sculptor, writer |
Awards | Eiteljorg Fellowship (2011) |
Bonnie Devine (born April 12, 1952) is a Serpent River Ojibwa installation artist, performance artist, sculptor, curator, and writer from Serpent River First Nation, who lives and works in Toronto, Ontario. [1] She is currently an associate professor at OCAD University and the founding chair of its Indigenous Visual Cultural Program. [2]
Bonnie Devine was born in Toronto and is a status member of the Serpent River First Nation. [1] In 1997 Devine graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design, with degrees in sculpture and installation, [3] and she earned her Master of Fine Arts degree at York University in 1999. [4] She has taught studio and liberal arts at York University, Queen's University, and the Centre for Indigenous Theatre. She joined OCAD University as a full-time instructor in 2008 [2] and was a founding chair of the university's Indigenous Visual Culture program. [5]
As a conceptual artist, Devine works with a variety of media, often combining traditional and unconventional materials. At a 2007 solo exhibition, Medicine River, at the Axéneo 7 art space in Quebec, she created eight-foot long knitting needles and knitted 250 feet of copper cable to bring attention to the contamination of the Kashechewan water system. [6] She has fashioned full-sized canoes from paper and works with natural materials such as reeds in her 2009 piece, New Earth Braid. She also created land-based installations. [7]
Devine's work is also primarily influenced by "the stories, technologies, and arts of the Ojibwa people." [8]
Devine's work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Canada, the U.S., South America, Russia and Europe. [8] Her 2010 solo exhibition, Writing Home, curated by Faye Heavyshield, was reviewed in Border Crossings. [9] A solo exhibition of Devine's work, Bonnie Devine: The Tecumseh Papers was held at the Art Gallery of Windsor from September 27, 2013, to January 5, 2014. [10] Her work is featured in the Art Gallery of Ontario's exhibition Before and after the Horizon: Anishinaabe Artists of the Great Lakes. [11]
Devine has received numerous awards, including 2002 Best Experimental Video at the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival, the Toronto Arts Awards Visual Arts Protégé Award in 2001, the Curry Award from the Ontario Society of Artists in 1999, a variety of awards from the Ontario College of Art and Design, as well as many grants and scholarships. [4] She has been chosen for the 2011 Eiteljorg Museum fellowship. [12] She received a Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts in 2021. [13]