March 26 to May 9, 2026
List of available artworks
Through Jiibay Spirit, Janice Toulouse presents a series of paintings grounded in her deep relationship to the spirit world and Anishinaabe teachings. For the artist, creation is both an expressionist gesture and a slow symbolic process, shaped by memory, meditation, and an ongoing connection to the land.
Her works take form through long solitary walks in nature, particularly in winter—moments of quiet reflection that renew inspiration and open a space for dialogue between body, spirit, and landscape. The canoe (Jiimaan), animal figures, and organic forms become vehicles of movement, both literal and symbolic, across land, time, and transmitted knowledge.
Toulouse creates for her clans (Dodems), the Bear and the Crane, to which she is deeply connected through lived experience, ceremony, and family memory. A survivor of the residential school system, her work also bears the trace of this colonial history and of the memories she continues to move through and transform through painting. Certain works bring forward personal and historical narratives, including that of her ancestral grandfather, the Ojibwe Chief Shingwaukonse, whose presence runs through the painting Sun Man.
Presented at La Guilde in Tiohtià:ke / Montreal—where Toulouse lived during her years of study at Concordia University—this exhibition takes the form of a return filled with meaning. Jiibay Spirit unfolds as an intimate visual narrative, carried by resilience, transmission, and a desire to care for the living world. Through painting, Toulouse invites the public into a space of encounter and dialogue, where individual and collective histories continue to circulate.
BIOGRAPHY
“As an artist and professor during my lifetime, I have worked to bring Indigenous art to the world. I research a visionary approach to creating paintings that tell a story of the land, history, and memory.”
Janice Toulouse is a painter and a member of the Ojibwe of Garden River. Born and raised in Serpent River, and Tkaronto (Toronto, ON), she is now working from her studio in Napanee, Ontario. She received her Master of Fine Arts from Concordia University, in 1985, becoming the first Indigenous graduate in Fine Arts from the institution. Toulouse was a professor of Contemporary Indigenous Art at Emily Carr University of Art & Design, before retiring in 2017 to focus full time on her artistic practice.
Throughout her career, she has created large-scale symbolic and abstract paintings rooted in Anishinaabe spiritual teachings, affirming a deep connection to land, memory, and Indigenous sovereignty. Her work has been exhibited extensively across Canada, the United States, and France.
On Truth and Reconciliation Day in 2024, she presented a solo exhibition at the Art Gallery of Algoma in Sault Ste. Marie. Toulouse is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2019 Ontario Arts Council Indigenous Art Award, the 2017 REVEAL Indigenous Art Award from the Hnatyshyn Foundation, and the 2002 Indigenous Artist Residency at the NMAI Smithsonian Museum in New York.
Opening : Thursday, March 26, 5:30 PM, the artist will be present.