Frank Shebageget
Artist Statement:
My work in sculpture and installation reflect an enduring interest in the geography of the Canadian Shield. My practice, which draws on the aesthetics of everyday materials, exploits the tense relationships between production, consumption and the economics of beauty, through the repetition of forms, labour-intensive processes, and the play between quasi-industrial and handcrafted methods.
Artist Biography
Frank Shebageget (Ojibway) was born and raised in Upsala, a small town in northwestern Ontario, and currently resides in Ottawa. Shebageget graduated with his A.O.C.A. from the Ontario College of Art in 1996, and received his Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Victoria in 2000. He was inducted into the Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts in 2016.
Shebageget’s solo exhibitions include Creature Comforts, Central Art Garage; Home/Works, Thunder Bay Art Gallery, Thunder Bay ON; Light Industry, Carleton University Art Gallery, Ottawa ON and “Model Life”, Surrey Art Gallery, Surrey BC.
Shebageget’s group exhibitions include Anishinaabeg: Art and Power, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto ON; Changing Hands: Art Without Reservation, Part 3, Museum of Art and Design New York NY, which toured to the following other venues: Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester, Rochester NY; The McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg ON; The Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Santa Fe NM; University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor MI and at the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, Indianapolis IN. Native Art Now, New Indigenous Art at NONAM, Stadt Zurich Nordamerika Native Museum, Zurich, Switzerland. Before and After the Horizon: Anishinaabe Artists of the Great Lakes, The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, New York NY; The Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto ON.
His work can be found in the collections of the Stadt Zurich Nordamerika Native Museum, City of Ottawa, Indigenous Art Centre, Ottawa Art Gallery, the Canada Council Art Bank, the Dorothy Hoover Library of the Ontario College of Art, and the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation.
Selected Available Works
Homes X2, Pulp board. 2010 10 X 8 , $3000 ea
Free Ride, 2022
Frank Shebageget
vintage canadian five dollar banknotes, engraved wood frame. 35 2/5 × 35 1/2 × 2 in. Edition of 3.
Collection of the Bank of Canada, the Canada Council Art Bank, and TD Bank
Communities (II), 2003
Frank Shebageget
tar paper, white ink, 16ft x 9ft, part of an ongoing series. ( Series II SOLD)
Model for Canadian Indian Homes, screen print, 2021,
Frank Shebageget
Screen print on BFK, in maple frame. Edition of 5 + AP; 33” x 45” x 2.5” (sold out)
1/6th Scale Indian House, 2021.
Frank Shebageget
Wood, paint, stain and tar paper, collection of the National Gallery of Canada
Straight Chair For Canadian Indian Homes, screen print, 2021
Frank Shebageget
Screen print on BFK, in maple frame. Edition of 5 + AP; 33” x 45” x 2.5” (sold out)
Straight Chair For Canadian Indian Homes, 2021
Frank Shebageget
Baltic Birch Plywood, Life Size, Edition of 3, collection of The National Gallery of Canada
Off The Grid, 2021
Frank Shebageget
Nine pulp board homes on plywood plinth. 21” x 23” x 67”
