Biography

Kent Monkman (born 13 November 1965) is a Canadian First Nations artist of Cree ancestry. He is a member of the Fisher River band situated in Manitoba's Interlake Region. Monkman lives and works in Toronto, Ontario.

He works in painting, film/video, and installation. In the early 2000s, Monkman developed his gender-fluid alter ego, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle.

He has had many solo exhibitions at museums and galleries in Canada, the United States, and Europe.: 1 He has achieved international recognition for colourful and richly detailed works that combine genre conventions to recast historical narrative. Monkman was born in St. Mary's, Ontario, Canada and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Having art instruction as a youth proved to be a formative experience for Monkman. He later attended various Canadian and US institutions, including the Banff Centre, the Sundance Institute in Los Angeles, and the Canadian Screen Training Institute.: 1 He graduated from Oakville's Sheridan College in 1986 (Canadian Art).

Monkman created sets and costumes for several productions for Native Earth Performing Arts including Lady of Silences (1993) by Floyd Favel and Diva Ojibway (1994).

In 2017, Monkman received the Bonham Centre Award from The Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies, University of Toronto, for his contributions to the advancement of issues around sexual identification. He also accepted the honorary title of grand marshal for Toronto's Pride parade that year, citing the importance of Canada's 150th anniversary and raising awareness of his work.

Curator of the University of Toronto art museum, Barbara Fischer, commissioned Monkman's exhibit, "Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience" to "set up a provocative friction between Canadian national myths, aboriginal experience and traditional European art practices." The exhibit sought to bring the Indigenous experience into the conversation, looking also at what Canada's 150 years meant for Indigenous people.

In 2019, the Metropolitan Museum of Art commissioned two paintings from Monkman for its Great Hall, entitled "mistikôsiwak (Wooden Boat People)." In 2020, the Met acquired the diptych entitled Welcoming the Newcomers (2019) and Resurgence of the People (2019) and published Revision and Resistance: mistikôsiwak (Wooden Boat People) (2020).

Monkman has officially identified both himself and Miss Chief as two-spirit.