Artist Talks
Cathy Mattes, 1:40 – 3:00pm
Tuesday, October 6th, 2026 at the Sutherland Art Gallery
Cathy Mattes is a Michif (Southwest Manitoba) curator, writer, and Associate Professor in History of Art at the University of Winnipeg. Mattes previously taught art history in Ishkaabatens Waasa Gaa Inaabateg, Department of Visual Art. She also taught for the Gender and Women Studies program at Brandon University, and is an adjunct faculty member in Graduate Studies at OCADU. She is a beadworker, Southern Michif language learner, and holds a PhD in Indigenous Studies from the University of Manitoba.
Mattes’ curation, research and writing centers on dialogic and Indigenous knowledge-centered curatorial practice, and Indigenous art transpedagogy as strategies for care. Several examples of curatorial projects are: Kwaata-nihtaawakihk – A Hard Birth (Co-curated with Sherry Farrell Racette, opening March 2022 at the Winnipeg Art Gallery), Radical Stitch (Co-curated with Sherry Farrell Racette and Michelle Lavallee, opening April 2022 at the Mackenzie Art Gallery) Inheritance: Amy Malbeuf (2017, Kelowna Art Gallery), and Frontrunners (2011, Urban Shaman Gallery and Plug-In ICA). She has curated over 50 exhibitions as a freelance curator and as Curator of Contemporary Art at the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba between 2003 and 2005. She has contributed artistically to several exhibitions and projects, most recently Pasapkedjinawong: the river that passes through the rocks (Mackenzie Art Gallery, Regina, June-September 2021), and Ways of Telling – Performance with Leah Decter (University of British Columbia Okanagan Summer Institute, Kelowna BC, 2016).
Katherine Boyer, 1:40 – 3:00pm
Tuesday, November 17th, 2026 at the Sutherland Art Gallery
Katherine Boyer (Métis/settler) is a multidisciplinary artist, whose work is focused on methods bound to textile arts and the handmade – primarily woodworking and beadwork. Boyer’s art and research encompasses personal and family narratives, entwined with Métis history, material culture, queer theory, and architectural spaces (human made and natural). Her work often explores boundaries between opposing things as an effort to better understand sides of a perceived dichotomous identity. This manifests in long, slow, and considerate laborious processes that attempt to unravel and better understand history, environmental influences, and personal memories.
Boyer is an MMF citizen and proud member of the Two-Spirit Michif Local. She has received a BFA from the University of Regina an MFA at the University of Manitoba and currently holds a position as an Associate Professor at the University of Manitoba, School of Art.
