Artist Talks
Cathy Mattes, 1:40 – 3:00pm
Tuesday, October 6th, 2026 at the Sutherland Art Gallery
Cathy Mattes is a Michif curator (MMF citizen, Westman Local-Southwest Region), writer, and art history professor based in Sprucewoods, Manitoba, Canada. Her curation, research and writing centers on dialogic and Indigenous knowledge-centered curatorial practice as strategies for care. Curatorial projects include Kwaata-nihtaawakihk (Co-curator Sherry Farrell Racette, Winnipeg Art Gallery, March 2022), and Radical Stitch (Co-curators Sherry Farrell Racette and Michelle Lavallee, touring exhibition with Mackenzie Art Gallery, 2022-2025).
She has a PhD in Indigenous Studies from the University of Manitoba and teaches at the University of Winnipeg in the History of Art and Curatorial Studies programs. Mattes has contributed writing to various publications, including Bead Talk: Knowledge and Aesthetics from the Flatlands (University of Manitoba Press, 2023), Radicalizing Care – Feminist and Queer Activism in Curating (Sternberg Press, 2021), and A Routledge Companion to Indigenous Art Histories in Canada (Routledge, 2022). Mattes has been beading since she was 20 years old, when she was first taught by her auntie Jean Baron Ward. Since then, she has taught beading and moccasin-making in workshops, university courses, and around her kitchen table with family and friends.
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.
