52 WEEKS::Daphne Odjig - SOLD

If my work as an artist has somehow helped to open doors between our people and the non-Native community, then I am glad.  I am even more deeply pleased if it has helped to encourage the young people that have followed our generation to express their pride in our heritage more openly, more joyfully than I would have ever dared to think possible.

~ Daphne Odjig

Because I grew up in northern Manitoba, my first exposure to the visual arts was that of the Woodlands Artists, and Daphne Odjig's was the first female artist to whom I was exposed.  She was born on Manitoulin Island in Ontario and has received both the Governor General's Award and the Order of Canada among many other accolades and was known for fusing pictographs and First Nations' arts with European techniques as she had received formal art education in Sweden.  In 1974 she opened the first gallery which featured Indigenous art exclusively in Winnipeg, Manitoba.