Kent Monkman

Monkman features his alter ego, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, in his new series of acrylic portraits, scantily clad in her signature dreamcatcher bra and high heels, hunting for love and communing with her kin – the indigenous animals of Turtle Island (North America). With a lush painterly style that evokes plein-air eighteenth-century pastoral landscapes, this series captures the gestural immediacy of studies created by old masters in oil, ink, pen, and chalk, but suggest a time on Turtle Island long before European contact. While Monkman is known for his large history paintings interrogating Western art history – including The Met's monumental mistikôsiwak (Wooden Boat People) diptych – with these paintings the artist offers an intimate glimpse of Miss Chief as a legendary being immersed in the unspoiled beauty of Turtle Island.