Name/Title
Rationalizing Solitary Efforts to Substantiate FictionEntry/Object ID
2016.18.02Description
Joseph Tisiga (b.1984, Edmonton, Alberta) is a multi-disciplinary artist and a member of the Kaska Dena Nation. Tisiga works primarily in drawing and painting, but his practice also expands to photography, sculpture, and performance. His artworks are centered around identity and the notions of cultural and social inheritance, looking at how family, community, nationality, history, mythology, and collective memory contribute to our understanding of self.
Many of Tisiga’s questions and perspectives play out in the form of narrative symbolic imagery, which draws from historical and imagined sources. Like actors on a stage, the figures in his drawings and paintings are organized in scenes to relay a dream-like interpretation of his heritage. The artist acknowledges that there is a sense of ambivalent Indigenous identity and spiritual amnesia in his works that stem from a sense of loss growing up in the suburbs with a western upbringing and connecting with his Kaska Dene culture later in life. From historic and contemporary aspects of colonialism to the depiction of traditional practices, each narrative drawing examines pieces of the artist's mixed identity and helps him grapple with his place in the present world by reconciling the present with the past.
Tisiga is currently based in Whitehorse, Yukon. He attended the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. Tisiga is the recipient of The Yukon Art Prize (2021), the Sobey Art Award (2020), and the REVEAL Indigenous Art Award (2017). His artwork can be found in collections across Canada including the National Gallery of Canada and the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal.Artwork Details
Medium
watercolour on paperDimensions
Height
55.88 cmWidth
76.2 cm