This audio is from our virtual studio visit with artist Shawnee Danielle in conversation with Kyra Heneghan-Smith, and was originally recorded on September 10, 2022 over Zoom.
Shawnee Danielle is an Indigenous Cree artist who was raised on the Maskwacis Reserve and is currently based in Amiskwaciwâskahikan or so-called Edmonton. In 2018, she graduated from MacEwan University with a Diploma in Fine Arts and moved forward in her academic studies to complete her Bachelor’s in Fine Arts in Art and Design at the University of Alberta in 2020. In 2019, she received the Indigenous Careers Award and was awarded numerously by Nipisihkopahk Iyinisiwin Trust Fund for the completion of her education throughout her academic career. She considers her practice to be a continuous exploration of her own Cree identity, both learning and exercising traditional practices, as she navigates her relationship with cultural identity through themes related around femininity, indigeneity, trauma, and body. While she works primarily as a painter, she also works with various mediums such as installation, video, digital media and photography.
Kyra Heneghan-Smith is a multidisciplinary artist living in Amiskwaciwâskahikan (Edmonton, Alberta) whose primary mediums include soft sculpture, photography, illustration, and painting. Drawing inspiration from nature and ecology, Kyra explores themes of gender, intimacy, and environmental decline. She is interested in poetics and pattern, and much of her work employs tools like metaphor and repetition. Kyra Graduated from MacEwan University in 2018 with a diploma in fine arts, and she received her BFA from the University of Alberta in 2021. Since graduating, Kyra has developed a commercial design practice, and spends much of her time learning and exploring new ways of making. Outside of work or the studio, Kyra can be found tending to her vegetable garden - an extension of her creative practice.