Excitement filled the air as the Toronto cultural community gathered at Onsite Gallery, OCAD University’s flagship professional art gallery, for the June 18 launch of a new retrospective exhibition on award-winning artist Rosalie Favell’s significant career.
Rosalie Favell | Belonging (1982-2024), curated by Ryan Rice, Onsite’s executive director and curator, Indigenous art, is the first major retrospective of the renowned Red River Metis artist, showcasing a curated selection of her lens-based work that spans from 1982 to 2024. The exhibition is on view until Dec. 6 and will tour across Canada from 2026 to 2028.
Favell, an internationally recognized artist with a creative practice spanning over 40 years, is known for using portraiture in photography, painting and video to interpret and represent her ancestry, sexual orientation and identity. She has drawn inspiration from family albums and popular culture to present a complex self-portrait of her lived experiences as a contemporary Indigenous woman.
Her work is held in major institutions, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Indigenous Art Centre and the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.
In 2022, OCAD U recognized Favell’s achievements with the presentation of an honorary doctorate.
The works featured in Belonging explore the themes of identity, empowerment, same-sex desire, community and the nuanced search for belonging. Visitors are encouraged to reflect on the concept of self-acceptance and the overlooked experiences of Metis, Indigenous Peoples and members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.
Onsite will host a series of tours exploring the artist’s perspective and curatorial themes of the exhibition throughout the summer.
The evening reception also celebrated the new large-scale photographic mural on the gallery’s façade – Facing the Camera: TSÍ TKARÒN:TO, a 2025 Core Program with the CONTACT Photography Festival and presented in conjunction with Belonging. An iteration of Favell’s acclaimed series Facing the Camera, the mural is a curated selection of portraits taken during her 2016 tenure as Nigig Artist in Residence with the Indigenous Visual Culture program at OCAD U.
“It is fitting to launch and celebrate Rosalie Favell’s retrospective exhibition in June during National Indigenous History Month and Pride Month. Her work boldly addresses those intersecting marginal and historical discrepancies that have shaped her 40-year creative journey and desires,” said Rice. “Through deeply personal and expansive photographic series such as Plain(s) Warrior Artist and Living Evidence, Favell locates a sense of belonging as a Metis and lesbian woman, unapologetically in both the private and public realm of her lifetime.”
Onsite Gallery is generously supported by the Delaney Family, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario, the Terra Foundation for American Arts and the Toronto Arts Council.
