“The more you have something, the more you look at it, the more you think about it, you can develop layers of your own knowledge and put it into the work. … It’s very multilayered and sometimes I don’t totally understand what I’m doing until it gets done. Sometimes maybe a year or two later, I think, ‘Oh yeah, that’s what was going on.’”

-Shelley Niro in interview, May 7, 2021.

Shelley Niro is a collector of objects and of impressions. The exhibition A Good, Long Look includes both old and new work, tracking Niro’s focused gaze as she reconstructs lost or misremembered histories of her Mohawk ancestry.

Shelley Niro is a member of the Turtle Clan, Bay of Quinte Mohawk from the Six Nations Reserve. Working in photography, painting, sculpture and film, Niro frequently utilizes parody and appropriation in her works to challenge stereotypical images of Aboriginal peoples, and women in particular. Often humorous and playful, her works address the challenges faced in contemporary Indigenous North American society. A graduate of the Ontario College of Art, Niro received her Master of Fine Art from the University of Western Ontario. Niro’s work has been broadly exhibited in galleries across Canada and can be found in the collections of the Canada Council Art Bank, Canadian Museum of Civilization, and Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography. Her award-winning films have been screened in festivals worldwide, and she presented work at the 2003 Venice Biennale. Shelley Niro lives in Brantford, Ontario.
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