Shannon Fennell Artist

    The Group of Seven Depicting Canada’s Environment                The Group of Seven is Canada's first internationally recognized art movement. All Canadian school children have been introduced to their works at some point in the art curriculum, and they are front and centre in Canadian museums and art collections. Originally known as the Algonquin School, the Group of Seven was a group of Canadian landscape painters active from 1920 to 1933. Founding members were Franklin Carmichael (1890–1945), Lawren Harris (1885–1970), A.Y. Jackson (1882–1974), Frank Johnston (1888–1949), Arthur Lismer (1885–1969), J.E.H. MacDonald (1873–1932), and Frederick Varley (1881–1969).   A.J. Casson (1898–1992) was invited to join in 1926, Edwin Holgate (1892–1977) in 1930, and L.L. FitzGerald (1890–1956) joined in 1932. Tom Thompson (1877-1917) is often considered the most important member of the Group, even thou...

Kent Monkman – A Study in Identity Being a Canadian descended from European settlers, living on stolen land, I made it a priority to educate myself on the injustice and abuse of the Indigenous peoples of Canada. I read The Indian Act of 1876 and it made me sick. One of the many things that act formalized was the Canadian Indian residential school system which was funded by the Department of Indian Affairs and administered by various churches. The sole purpose was to “take the Indian out of the child” by removing them from their families, isolating them in residential schools far from home, forbidding them to speak their language, and indoctrinating them into the Euro-centric settler culture. But the physical, sexual and other abuses were horrifying causing generational traumas that are still impacting indigenous families. The number of children who are still missing, were killed or died while in the care of these schools is still not known, but graves are being found on former school...