Skeena Reece

Skeena Reece (born 1974) is a Cree, Tsimshian, Gitksan, and Métis artist based in Canada whose multi-disciplinary practice includes such genres as performance art, "sacred clowning," songwriting, and video art.

Background Skeena Reece was born in 1974 to Red Power movement activist Cleo Reece and internationally renowned carver Victor Reece. She studied at Freda Diesing School of Northwest Coast Art and later at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design for media arts. She has been working in the arts since 1996 and is currently based out of Vancouver Island. She has also worked in administrative capacities at arts institutions such as the grunt gallery, where she worked as a curatorial practices intern. Reece is the founder of the Native Youth Artists Collective, and was Director of the Indigenous Media Arts Group from 2005 to 2007.

Artistic practice "I wanted to create this thing that was spiritually intangible and could only be seen as something if you were here right now. And nobody can take it, or even think about it or write about it or read about it later, you’ve kinda gotta be in it. It was just so magical I was like ‘that’s enough. It doesn’t have to go anywhere from here." - Skeena Reece, 2012

Reece is known for making works that deal with issues surrounding settler colonialism and its consequences on Indigenous peoples, especially women. Often these works unsettle and challenge their audiences. She also closely aligns herself and her artistic practice with the figure of the “sacred clown”, a Hopi Indian figure who teaches lessons in uncouth ways. She bases her work on trickster figures such as Coyote and Raven, who is seen as both a prankster, but also as wise. Reece uses such regalia to make a political statement and to overturn Indigenous gender roles, for example by wearing a headdress that is usually reserved for men. Images of grenades, arms, and mythological figures cover her clothing to represent her as a “fe/male warrior” and as a mythological figure, like Raven, coming to help fight against colonial violence. She proceeded to have another artist bring out a bucket of red paint in which he begins to paint “one of Columbus's ships on a large board as Reece speaks about sexual fetishes, fear of government and the inaccurate portrayal of Indians on television.”

On these issues, her work also deals with the act of caring and reconciliation. Such themes can be seen in her work Touch Me (2013), a video work made specifically for the 2013 exhibition, Witnesses: Art and Canada’s Indian Residential Schools. The fourteen minute video consists of Reece bathing Ukrainian-Canadian artist Sandra Semchuk. 2025 – Curve! Women Carvers on the Northwest Coast, Audain Art Gallery, Whistler, British Columbia, Canada 2024 – 1:1 Artists Select: Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill | Skeena Reece, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada 2021 – Honey and Sweetgrass, Duke Hall Gallery of Fine Art, Harrisonburg, Virginia, USA 2020 – Àbadakone | Continuous Fire | Feu continuel, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada 2019 – Second Skin, Glenbow Museum, Calgary, Alberta, Canada 2019 – Surrounded: Skeena Reece, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada 2018 – Sweetgrass and Honey, Plug In ICA, Winnipeg and at the Comox Valley Art Gallery, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada 2017 – Moss, Oboro Gallery, Montreal, Canada 2015 – The Sacred Clown and Other Strangers, Urban Shaman Contemporary Aboriginal Art, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada 2013 – Witnesses: Art and Canada’s Indian Residential Schools, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada 2012 – BEAT NATION: Art, Hip Hop and Aboriginal Culture, Vancouver Art Gallery, British Columbia, Canada 2012 – Like a Boss, The Power Plant, Toronto, Ontario, Canada 2011 – Acting Out, Claiming Space, Modern Fuel Artist-Run Centre, Kingston, Ontario, Canada 2010 – The Beauty of Distance: Songs of Survival in a Precarious Age, 17th Biennale of Sydney 2009 – Please Do Not Disturb, Nuit Blanche, Toronto, Ontario, Canada 2009 – Vampyre Love Ball, LIVE Biennale, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada 2008 – We Are All One, UBC Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada 2008 – It’s not TV, It’s Indians!, National Museum of the American Indian, Washington DC, United States

Filmography

Acting roles +YearTitleRoleNotes2009SavageMotherShort film. Winner of 2010 Genie award for Best Short Film, a Golden Sheaf Award for Best Multicultural Film, the ReelWorld Outstanding Canadian Short Film, and the Leo Awards for Best Actress and Best Editing.

Awards 2017 – The Hnatyshyn Foundation, REVEAL: Indigenous Arts Award 2014 – VIVA Award, 2014 2012 – British Columbia Creative Achievement Foundation, Award for First Nations Art