Camille Turner’s Miss Canadiana - Challenging the Dress Code - Canadian Art
From Camille Turner’s beauty-queen alter ego, Miss Canadiana, to Kent Monkman’s flamboyant First Nations drag character, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, larger-than-life personae animate “Fashionality: Dress and Identity in Contemporary Canadian Art” at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection. The exhibition, on view to September 3, plays on a term that describes the way that personality, identity and nationality are expressed through dress, as seen in works by 23 Canadian artists.
Turner’s fictional beauty-contest winner, Miss Canadiana, appears on plates and mugs commemorating her “homecoming” tour through Hamilton, Ontario. Her evening gown, sash and tiara look more than a little incongruous against the city’s imposing industrial landscape. As a satire on Canadian multiculturalism, the work picks up social resonance with every image.