A common translation of the Cree term wâhkôhtowin into English offers the word kinship. However, this transfer between languages lacks the broader sphere of experience that this word is meant to evoke— something closer to: bent walking over the land with reciprocity.* Working across languages and world views, Zoe Ann Cardinal Cire explores methods of non-verbal communication through her artistic practice. Pushing against the limits of medium-specificity as a way of connecting the knowable, unknowable and the sensorial, her works offer joyful challenges to the expected use of materials such as tarps, garments, wood, cans and beads. 

Human figures appear throughout Cire’s works. Some as fragments, others in candid moments. For example, a beaded fringe work, In Pr(ax)is depicts the artist’s mother wearing a distinctive red and white flannel shirt bent over while picking wildflowers with an axe. Like pixels, each strand of beads is carefully arranged to reproduce the image. Attached to a 2”x 4” armature, an additional beaded component sits atop the structure: an image of the artist’s grandfather created in the round. The artist likened her process of making this work to Métis writer Cherie Dimaline’s phrasing of “dreams like bright beads on a string of nights that wound around her.”** While Cire uses beads to weave memories, she resists telling the full story.

A subtle self-portrait, the artist is depicted alongside her three siblings and Auntie in Mandarin oranges and wapôs stew for the winter (2022). Wearing clothes that suggest the time frame of the early 2000s, one sibling holds a recently caught rabbit and her auntie a box of oranges—indicative of the winter months when oranges were available on Treaty 6. Painted on a tarp, each of the five faces are partially or fully obscured. At times, Cire’s tarp paintings also transform into other objects, for example Pickup (folded) and Treaty 6 Smokes (2023) is a sculptural work composed of a used tarpaulin painted, folded and sealed into a three dimensional object. A sewn empty pack of “Treaty 6 classic” cigarettes sits atop the sculpture, painted with floral motifs.

Toeing the line between figuration and abstraction, Cire often uses the absence of figures, or bodies, to reference them. Frequently working with garments, works such as Beaver Denim (2024) are indicative of the artist’s close observation of the materials readily available to her—here a pair of her jeans. Transforming the Wrangler brand denim into a beaver, she sewed cross-hatching onto the legs to mimic the patterning of the animal’s tail. A pair of beaded orange teeth protrude from the waist. Through her work, Cire shares her own understanding of kinship with humour and joy, articulating her situated, and ever-curious, visual language.

*Dwayne Donald, We Need a New Story: Walking and the wâhkôhtowin Imagination, 2021.

**Cherie Dimaline, The Marrow Thieves, 2017. Pp. 173.

Zoe Ann Cardinal Cire (b. 1998, Ponoka, Alberta) is a visual artist born and raised on Treaty 6 territory of central Alberta who brings together material sensibilities from her paternal Métis and maternal Beaver Lake Cree Nation lineages. Her works engage conversations which oscillate between the terrains of paint, beads and textiles, focusing on place and enlivening material associations. Cire holds a  Bachelor of Visual Arts from Emily Carr University (Vancouver), and Master of Fine Art from Yale University (USA) where she received the Blair Dickinson Memorial Prize. Her works have been presented in exhibitions at the Native American Cultural Center (New Haven), Burnaby Art Gallery (British Columbia), Seymour Art Gallery (North Vancouver), HOEA Gallery (Gisborne, NZ), David Castillo (Miami) and Franz Kaka (Toronto).