Raw and tender, echoing with whispered voices Faye HeavyShield: Issokawo’taan on view as of Saturday, August 16
Artist in attendance for public opening event on Saturday, Sept. 6, 2025, at 2 p.m.
TORONTO — Winner of the 2021 Gershon Iskowitz Prize at the AGO award for her outstanding contribution to visual art in Canada, Faye HeavyShield makes her Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) exhibition debut this summer with a focused solo exhibition. Opening August 16, 2025, Faye HeavyShield: Issokawo’taan features three installations and marks the restaging of Venus as Torpedo, a multimedia sculptural installation last presented in 1995.
A classically trained sculptor, for more than five decades HeavyShield has defied formal categorization with her highly personal, minimalist approach to artmaking, incorporating elements of sculpture, installation, drawing, sound, and text. A member of the Blackfoot Confederacy from the Kainai (Blood) Nation in the foothills of Southern Alberta, HeavyShield’s work resonates with personal and ancestral stories and is inseparable from the land on which she lives and works. “Blackfoot is my first language,” says HeavyShield. “Art is my second.” The exhibition title, Issokawo’taan, is her name in Blackfoot language.
“Drawing, like the colour red, like texture, like women, and voice, are a constant in my art practice. They speak together here,” says HeavyShield. “Venus sits with Sommitsikanaki and Issitaki and all the other grandmothers who give art.”
Curated by the AGO’s Fredrik S. Eaton Curator of Canadian Art, Georgiana Uhlyarik, and on view on Level 2 inside the J.S. McLean Centre for Indigenous and Canadian Art, HeavyShield’s work spans three gallery spaces, with artworks installed on the floor, walls and suspended from the ceiling, sunlight dancing across them.
Recalling the distinctive expanse of the prairies and the foothills, the low form of Venus as Torpedo (1996/2025) juts out from the gallery wall, cresting above the wooden floor. Its rib-like frame is covered in garments sourced from loved ones, all hand-dyed the same shade of red ochre. Quietly emanating from the form, are the voices of women speaking in English and Blackfoot. The voices are nearly a whisper, beckoning the visitor nearer.
Nearby, HeavyShield’s I will know when I see you (2021–ongoing) features a constellation of drawings and text, affixed directly to the wall. Suspended from the ceiling, the elements that compose adrift (2025) are driven by sun and air.
“Rooted in the land, in her Kainai (Blood) Nation family, and the Blackfoot language, HeavyShield’s art is a deeply personal evocation of place, of community and of history. It’s also deeply contemporary – its references and allusions, like so many tendrils, reach out across time and place. It is work that challenges us to reconsider what art can do,” says Uhlyarik.
Faye HeavyShield: Issokawo’taan is on view at the AGO through February 22, 2026. Admission to the AGO is always free for Indigenous Peoples, Ontarians under 25, AGO Members and Annual Pass holders. The AGO is open late on Wednesdays and Fridays until 9 p.m. and every Saturday and Sunday between 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., as well as select holiday Mondays.
For more information on how to become an AGO Member or Annual Pass holder, visit ago.ca/membership/become-a-member.
More ways to explore Canada this summer, made possible by the Government of Canada. With the Canada Strong Pass, the AGO is offering free or reduced admission throughout the summer for out of province visitors 24 years of age and under. For more information or to book your tickets, visit ago.ca/visit.
Programming highlights:
On Saturday, Sept. 6, 2025, at the 2 p.m., join Faye HeavyShield and Georgiana Uhlyarik, Fredrik S. Eaton Curator, Canadian Art, AGO, as they celebrate the opening of Faye HeavyShield: Issokawo’taan. Stay tuned to ago.ca/events for more details.
Faye HeavyShield: Issokawo’taan is organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario in partnership with the Gershon Iskowitz Foundation.
Contemporary programming at the AGO is generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts
@AGOToronto | #SeeAGO
ABOUT FAYE HEAVYSHIELD
Born in 1953 at Stand Off, in the Blood Reserve, Alberta, Faye HeavyShield is a member of the Blackfoot Confederacy from the Kainai (Blood) Nation in the foothills of Southern Alberta. Studying at the Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary, Alberta, HeavyShield’s art has been highlighted, in both solo and group exhibitions, at galleries across Canada including the Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver, BC), Gallery Connexion (Fredericton, NB), the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery (Toronto, ON), and the Southern Alberta Art Gallery. Faye’s work is found in permanent collections of the National Gallery of Canada, the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, the Alberta Foundation of Art, the Glenbow Museum (Calgary, AB), the Heard Museum (Phoenix, AZ), the MacKenzie Art Gallery (Regina, SK) and the Kelowna Art Gallery (Kelowna, BC). HeavyShield was an Eiteljorg Fellowship artist in 2009 and a 2021 recipient of the Lt. Governor General of Alberta Award-Visual Arts.
ABOUT THE GERSHON ISKOWITZ FOUNDATION
The Gershon Iskowitz Foundation is a private charitable foundation established in 1986 through the generosity of painter Gershon Iskowitz (1919 – 1988). Iskowitz recognized the importance of grants in the development of artists in Canada, in particular acknowledging that a grant from the Canada Council in 1967 gave him the freedom to create his distinctive style. Iskowitz’s works are in public and private collections across Canada and abroad. The Foundation’s principal activity is the designation of the Prize which is unique in that one can neither apply nor be nominated. A second distinct characteristic which many of the recipients have commented on is that the Prize is an excellent example of an artist supporting other artists. Iskowitz himself was actively involved in designating the Prize in its first years; after his death this responsibility passed to juries composed of trustees of the Foundation and invited artists and curators. The achievements of the first 20 years of the Foundation and the Prize are detailed in The Gershon Iskowitz Prize 1986 – 2006; the work of subsequent winners is included on the Foundation’s web site, www.iskowitzfoundation.ca
ABOUT THE GERSHON ISKOWITZ PRIZE AT THE AGO
At the 20-year mark of the Prize, the Foundation formed a collaborative partnership with the Art Gallery of Ontario to raise awareness of the importance of the Prize and through it, the visual arts in Canada. The AGO is home to Gershon Iskowitz’s archives, which include early works on paper, sketchbooks and memorabilia, and it holds 29 paintings by Iskowitz spanning 1948 to 1987 in its collection. Beginning in 2006, in addition to a substantial financial award, the Prize included a solo exhibition of the winner’s work at the museum. Among the previous recipients of the Prize are Liz Magor, Betty Goodwin, General Idea, Stan Douglas, John Massey, Irene F. Whit tome, Françoise Sullivan, Geoffrey Farmer, Brian Jungen, Michael Snow, Kim Adams, Rebecca Belmore, Ken Lum and Tim Whiten. As of August 16, 2025, two concurrent solo exhibitions by Gershon Iskowitz Prize recipients will be on view at the AGO — Allison Katz: Inner Momentum (continuing to April 26, 2026) and Faye HeavyShield: Issokawo’taan (continuing to February 22, 2026).
ABOUT THE AGO
Located in Toronto, the Art Gallery of Ontario is one of the largest art museums in North America, attracting approximately one million visitors annually. The AGO Collection of more than 120,000 works of art ranges from cutting-edge contemporary art to significant works by Indigenous and Canadian artists and European masterpieces. The AGO presents wide-ranging exhibitions and programs, including solo exhibitions and acquisitions by diverse and underrepresented artists from around the world. The AGO is embarking on the seventh expansion it has undertaken since the museum was founded in 1900. When completed, the Dani Reiss Modern and Contemporary Gallery will increase exhibition space for the museum’s growing modern and contemporary collection. With its groundbreaking Annual Pass program, the AGO is one of the most affordable and accessible attractions in the GTA. Visit ago.ca to learn more.
The AGO is funded in part by the Ontario Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Gaming. Additional operating support is received from the City of Toronto, the Canada Council for the Arts, and generous contributions from AGO Members, donors, and private-sector partners.
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