Michelle Sound

Michelle Sound is a Cree and Métis artist and mother. She is a member of Wapsewsipi Swan River First Nation in Treaty 8 Territory, Northern Alberta where her mother is from, her father’s family is from the Buffalo Lake and Kikino Métis settlements in central Alberta, Treaty 6 territory. She was born and raised on the unceded and ancestral home territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Simon Fraser University, School for the Contemporary Arts, and a Master of Applied Arts from Emily Carr University Art + Design. Her work has most recently been placed in the National Gallery of Canada in Ontario, the McMichael Collection in Ontario, as well as the Forge Project in Hudson, New York.

Sound’s work explores personal and familial narratives with a consideration of Indigenous artistic processes. Her works explore cultural identities and histories by engaging materials and concepts within a contemporary context. Through utilizing such practices as drum making, caribou hair tufting, beadwork, painting and photography, her work highlights that acts of care and joy are situated in family and community. She works with traditional and contemporary materials and techniques to explore maternal labour, identity, and cultural knowledges.

SELECTED WORKS
BIO

Michelle Sound is a Cree and Métis artist and mother. She is a member of Wapsewsipi Swan River First Nation in Treaty 8 Territory, Northern Alberta where her mother is from, her father’s family is from the Buffalo Lake and Kikino Métis settlements in central Alberta, Treaty 6 territory. She was born and raised on the unceded and ancestral home territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Simon Fraser University, School for the Contemporary Arts, and a Master of Applied Arts from Emily Carr University Art + Design.

Sound is a multidisciplinary visual artist and her art practice includes a variety of mediums including photo based work, textiles, painting and Indigenous material practices. Her artwork often explores her Cree and Métis identity from a personal experience rooted in family, place and history. She works with traditional and contemporary materials and techniques to explore maternal labour, identity, cultural knowledge, and cultural inheritances.

Sound has completed artist residencies at the Burrard Arts Foundation(2022), the Indigenous Arts Intensive at UBC Okanagan(2023-24) and the Banff Centre for the Arts(2024). Public art pieces include a printed Transit mural (City of Edmonton),a painted mural at Ociciwan Art Centre (Edmonton) and a printed mural at the Canadian Embassy in Paris. Her work is held in numerous private, corporate and institutional collections including the Burnaby Art Gallery, Indigenous Art Centre (CIRNAC), Forge Project NY, the McMichael Collection and the National Gallery of Canada.

Sound has had recent solo and two person exhibitions at Neutral Ground ARC (Regina), Daphne Art Centre (Montréal), Alternator (Kelowna), Gallery 101 (Ottawa), Burrard Arts Foundation, Nanaimo Art Gallery Grunt Gallery, Seymour Art Gallery (Vancouver) and Diana Gallery (New York City). Recent group exhibitions include the Burnaby Art Gallery, Richmond Art Gallery, Audain Art Museum(Whistler) and BACA (Montreal), Latitude 53 (Edmonton), and the Art Gallery of South Western Manitoba. Upcoming exhibitions include Gordon Smith Gallery(Capture Photography Festival, NVan) and Thomas Cole National Historic site, Catskill, NY. Sound has been longlisted for the Lind Photography Prize(2024) and the Sobey Art Award(2025).

 

Otinaskiwin (Land Grab):

The Otinaskiwin (Land Grab) series explores the seizure of Indigenous lands, forced displacement and Indigenous erasure. Indian reserves, national parks, crown lands, federal reserves are used to control Indigenous territories and resources, despite this, Indigenous connection to the land continues. These images contain loss, grief, longing and memory. The images are ripped to show the colonial violence that my family, and other Indigenous families, have experienced. These losses can never be fully healed but we can talk about our histories and realities through art, culture and stories. These photographic works on paper incorporate beadwork, embroidery thread and mink fur.

 

NDN Aunties:

NDN Aunties, is a homage to our Aunties, a community of caretakers. Our aunties are also our mothers, who take care of us, our ‘cool’ moms. More often than not, our aunties are our first style icons, the loud aunties with the big laugh, who take us to the mall. This drum series is a tribute to their classic auntie style.

 

Damn I’m Good:

Family is the predominant theme in Sounds work, as is connection to place. Much of the artist’s inspiration stems from her birth mother, who passed away at the age of 30, when Sound was 10.
Damn, I’m Good a banner created with elkhide, rabbit fur, artificial sinew and acrylic paint directly references Sound’s mother. The text was inspired from a button her mother was wearing (though partially obscured) in a photo booth picture she has of the two of them together.
“I think a lot of my work is about connecting with her in that way and also honouring her, because she had a lot of really hard choices to make,” Sound says. “She was a mom, she was a sister, she was loved and she definitely struggled, but in a lot of ways, she was a really strong woman and a survivor.”
Of this particular artwork, Sound says “I just liked the sassiness of it and thought that kind of sassy attitude applied to so many Indigenous women.”
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