Join & Support
  • Exhibitions
  • Collections
  • What’s On
  • Learn
  • About the AGH
  • Plan Your Visit
  • AGH art+music+food Festival
  • Weddings & Events
  • Art Sales + Services
  • AGH Shop
  • AGH Magazine
  • AGH at Home

Thanks to the support of an anonymous donor, the AGH is proud to be offering FREE SUMMER ADMISSION during regular business hours. Ends August 31, 2025. 

AGH

Join & Support
  • AGH Magazine
  • Education
  • Programming
  • Community
  • Behind the Scenes
  • Shop at AGH
  • Wedding & Event Services
  • Exhibition
  • Art

Art

Collection Showcase: Robert Houle

Megan Olynik

- January 24, 2020

Here at the AGH, we are very proud of the collection of artworks we are fortunate enough to hold in our care. From the over 10,000 pieces in our collection, we have selected a sampling to display in our exhibition The Collection on Gallery Level 2, accessible and free to everyone!

Exploring a piece from this exhibition, today’s Collection Showcase looks at Saulteaux artist Robert Houle’s (b. 1947) work Kanehsatake (1990–93) and Aboriginal Title (1989-1990), two direct responses to important moments in Indigenous resistance in Canada.

Robert Houle (Salteaux b. 1947), Kanehsatake, 1990-1993, oil on etched steel panels, treated wood. Gift of the artist, 1994.

An accomplished artist, curator, writer, and educator, Robert Houle leads a multi-faceted career exploring the nuances of history, identity, and conflict. A residential school survivor, Houle creates work that combines the preservation of Indigenous history with a thoughtful contemporary lens. Former Chief Curator at the AGH (and now Executive Director of the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery), Shirley Madill, notes that “[Houle’s] aim is to assert identity as an artist through an honourable synthesis of cultures without compromising Native traditions or surrendering the memory of the ‘ancient ones.’”[1] Professionally, Houle used this aim to accomplish much as the first Indigenous curator of contemporary Indigenous art at the Canadian Museum of Civilization (now Canadian Museum of History), and also as the first professor of Indigenous Studies at Ontario College of Art & Design, mentoring the likes of contemporary artists Shelley Niro (b. 1954) and Bonnie Devine (b. 1952). Artistically, his perspective and experience strengthen his ability to make powerful public statements on contemporary issues.

Responding to the Oka Crisis (1990), ongoing at the time of Kanehsatake’s creation, the work looms over onlookers, standing tall and constructed of the sturdy materials of steel and wood. Pointing directly to a site of resistance between Indigenous peoples and the Canadian police and army, Houle etches the name of the Mohawk settlement at the centre of the dispute. Madill notes that the work “signals the fight for one’s home in the shadow of the Oka Crisis, its strength as a place reinforced in the fact that the name is etched in steel.”[2] Mimicking street signage and caution symbols, Houle places this massive piece of steel on wood, and marks the wood with cautionary red and yellow stripes. The artist thus simultaneously confronts the space of the struggle, the colonial space as laid out through infrastructure, and the space of the art gallery in which the viewer approaches the work.

Robert Houle (Salteaux b. 1947), Aboriginal Title, 1989-1990, oil on canvas. Acquired with the assistance of the Alfred Wavell Peene and Susan Nottle Peene Memorial, 1992.

The use of a single, monochromatic colour block mirrors that of another Houle work on display, Aboriginal Title (1989–90). This seven-foot-tall work overwhelms the viewer with stark red numbers across an all-red background, presenting four important dates in the centuries-long relationship between European colonizers and Canadian First Nations peoples. Depicting the dates here echoes the etching of the settlement name in Kanehsatake, demonstrating Houle’s active hand in re-contextualizing these historical moments as belonging to Indigenous history. The title of the work itself is a word play on the ongoing injustice of land grants. Houle notes the cathartic quality of this effort, stating, “I began to talk to myself when I was painting, and then my body would decolonize itself with my voice.”[3]

“His painting functions as text in the absence of writing,” Houle’s mentee Bonnie Devine notes, “as history in the absence of official account.”[4] With these two works, Houle is working to re-shape our understandings of conflict as the events unfold.

Fascinated by the scope presented in these Houle works? Head to our Gallery Level 2 exhibition, The Collection, to see Kanehsatake and Aboriginal Title. Admission is free any day the Gallery is open. We plan to expand our display of collection works all year, so check in throughout 2020 to watch the exhibition grow!

 

[1] Shirley Madill, “Coming Home,” Robert Houle: Sovereignty over Subjectivity (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1999).

[2] Shirley Madill, “Coming Home,” Robert Houle: Sovereignty over Subjectivity (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1999).

[3] Hillary Windsor, “How Robert Houle ‘decolonized’ himself through painting,” The Coast, April 9, 2015, accessed January 24, 2020, https://www.thecoast.ca/halifax/how-robert-houle-decolonized-himself-through-painting/Content?oid=4586584

[4] Bonnie Devine, “Telling as Painting,” Robert Houle: Sovereignty over Subjectivity (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1999).

  • AGH
  • exhibitions
  • Permanent Collection
  • Painting

Megan is the Manager of Digital Content at the Art Gallery of Hamilton.


Related

The AGH Art Sale

Shop at AGH, Programming, Community

The 1954 Sale of Fine Arts: How a Volunteer Initiative Led to a Time-Honoured Tradition at the AGH

Aaron Lam

- April 17, 2025
'Her Too" exhibition at the Art Gallery of Hamilton

Community, Art, Education

Her Too: A Celebration of Women Artists Who Broke Down Barriers

Aaron Lam

- March 6, 2025
Art Gallery of Hamilton

123 King Street West
Hamilton, ON, L8P 4S8
(905) 527-6610

Contact Us

Gallery Hours

Thursday 11 am – 9 pm
Friday 11 am – 6 pm
Saturday 11 am – 5 pm
Sunday 11 am – 5 pm

 

Mon – Wed: Pre-booked tours only

 

Plan Your Visit

 

Sign Up for Agh Mail

Sign up today to receive e-mail updates on our exhibitions, events, and more.

Sign Up

Platinum Partners
Logo for: Bank of Montreal Logo for: RBC Royal Bank Logo for: TD Canada Trust Logo for: Cogeco Logo for: Orlick Industries Logo for: Effort Trust

© 2025 Art Gallery of Hamilton Privacy Policy