Kent Monkman

Kent Monkman is an interdisciplinary visual artist who fulfilled his responsibility to paint the real history of his people under colonialism.

A member of ocêkwi sîpiy (Fisher River Cree Nation) in Treaty 5 Territory (Manitoba), he lives and works in New York City and Toronto.

In Kate Brown’s Artnet article, How Kent Monkman Is Reclaiming History: ‘We’ve Always Been Here, and We Will Always Be Here’, Monkman says. “I’ve been an artist my entire life. Growing up in Winnipeg, I had access to the Winnipeg Art Gallery, where I took Saturday morning art classes as a kid. From a very early age, I felt that I belonged in those spaces. Museums were places where I could participate and feel a sense of wonder and curiosity, where I could be inspired by what was on the walls.”

He attended various Canadian and U.S. institutions, including the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, the Sundance Institute in Los Angeles, and the National Screen Institute. He graduated with a degree in Canadian art from Sheridan College in 1986.

In 2019, the Metropolitan Museum of Art commissioned two paintings from Monkman for its Great Hall. The exhibition was called mistikôsiwak (“wooden boat people”). In 2020, the Met acquired the diptych of paintings entitled Welcoming the Newcomers and Resurgence of the People.

"...when Indigenous people are the protagonists, things look radically different.", The New York Times.

Monkman studied paintings such as Emanuel Leutze’s Washington Crossing the Delaware and others of that period and learned how to paint in that style. In the The Met, Meet the Artist interview Monkman says, “…he (Washington) is the hero of that painting…and I wanted Miss Chief to be the hero of my painting Resurgence of the People. Miss Chief is commanding this boat. I wanted to make a monumental painting that reflected on indigenous perspective that would give it that same importance.”

Resurgence of the People

There was controversy over Monkman's painting Hanky Panky depicting the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, restrained and on all fours with his pants down as Monkman's alter ego, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, approaches him from behind holding up a red sex toy in the shape of praying hands.

The Believer interviewer says, “I noticed the museum’s two major Canadian galleries are closed indefinitely: the Eurocentric Sigmund Samuel Gallery of Canada and the Daphne Cockwell Gallery dedicated to First Peoples art and culture.

Monkman answers, “Basically, we got the First Peoples Gallery closed. I do that kind of behind-the-scenes heavy lifting at museums. People refer to it as “decolonizing,” which is one way of describing it. It’s about undoing systems that have been set in place for so long that they’re sedentary and continue to miseducate, misinform, and actually cause harm—particularly to Indigenous people, who encounter these authoritative voices telling stories about us that we had nothing to do with.”

“Monkman's work refutes how settler artists depicted the land”, writes Petala Ironcloud, in the CBC Arts article History is Painted by the Victors. "We've been represented in this very dehumanizing and convenient way," Monkman says. "Those images were used to remove us from our landscapes. Those images have nothing to do with us. They're actually more about the fantasies and dreams and nightmares of the settler population. They're telling their story.

"I wanted to create a space for me and my community," Monkman says. "I'm not going to make art for Middle America. I'm going to make art about who we are and then just find a way to seduce them into it."

Welcoming the Newcomers

In 2023, Monkman and Gisèle Gordon published The Memoirs of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle in two volumes and the first volume was shortlisted for the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction at the 2024 Governor General's Awards.

His other books are Being Legendary at Royal Ontario Museum : Confronting Colonialism, Rethinking History and History Is Painted by the Victors.

Monkman is an Officer of the Order of Canada (2023) and the recipient of the Ontario Premier’s Award for Excellence in the Arts (2017), an honorary doctorate degree from OCAD University (2017), the Indspire Award (2014), and the Hnatyshyn Foundation Visual Arts Award (2014).

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts held a retrospective of Kent Monkman’s work History Is Painted by the Victors which ran from September 27, 2025 to March 8, 2026.

“We’ve always been here, and we will always be here. My work is a reminder of that resilience.”