Adrian Stimson (born 1964 in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada)[1] is an artist and a member of the Siksika Nation.[2]
Stimson earned a BFA with distinction from the Alberta College of Art and Design[3] and an MFA from the University of Saskatchewan.[3]
Stimson is a multidisciplinary artist: He creates paintings, installations, performances and video.[4] His mostly black and white paintings often depict bison in fictional settings. In his installations, he refers to experiences in the residential school system.[4] His performances look at constructing identity and the blending of the Indian, the cowboy, the shaman and the Two Spirit being.[4] Two recurring personas in Stimson's performances are Buffalo Boy and the Shaman Exterminator.[5][6]
Stimson travelled with the Canadian Forces Artists Program to Afghanistan in 2010.[7]
In 2017, Stimson created, "TRENCH," a five-day durational performance on the Siksika (Blackfoot) Nation. The performance commemorates the approximately 4,000 Indigenous soldiers who served in the First World War.[8] This contemporary art contributed to War Stories: 1917 at Calgary's Military Museums.[9]
In 2019, Stimson collaborated with AA Bronson for the Toronto Biennial of Art on A public apology to Siksoka Nation by Bronson and Iini Sookumapii: Guess who’s coming to dinner? a work that explored the connection between two of their ancestors: Bronson's great-grandfather John William Tims, an Anglican missionary who established a residential school in 1886 and Stimson's great-grandfather Old Sun (1819–1897), the traditional chief of the North Blackfoot and a participant of the making of Treaty 7.[10][11][12]
In 2020 he created a waterbed installation, a nod to Ono's and Lennon's famous bed-ins for peace as part of the Yoko Ono’s exhibition Growing Freedom at Contemporary Calgary.[13]
Two of Stimson's paintings are in the North American Indigenous collection of the British Museum.[4][2] His work is included in the collections of the Glenbow Museum, Calgary,[14] and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.[15]
In 2018 he was awarded the Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts.[4][16] Stimson won the Blackfoot Visual Arts Award in 2009,[17] the Alberta Centennial Medal in 2005 and the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal in 2003,[17]