The McMaster Museum of Art M(M)A celebrated the opening of Meryl McMaster: Bloodline with an opportunity for community members to meet the artist herself.
The only university-affiliated museum on the exhibition’s national tour, M(M)A offers a unique context for the survey exhibition by one of Canada’s most engaging contemporary artists, inviting students to encounter the art alongside their evolving academic and personal experiences.
“Having Bloodline shown at M(M)A feels different because students are encountering the work at a moment when they are actively learning how to look, question, and make meaning,” McMaster said.
She hopes the work encourages students to consider how personal history, education, and lived experience shape creative and critical practices over time, and to see artistic paths as evolving through curiosity, reflection and change.
Students, staff, faculty and community members listen to artist Meryl McMaster’s remarks at the exhibition reception of Meryl McMaster: Bloodline.
More than 90 students, staff, faculty and community members gathered to celebrate the exhibition’s opening and reception. Bloodline brings together large-scale photographic works and, for the first time, two recent digital video works that further deepen McMaster’s exploration of ancestry, land, and intergenerational memory.
Bloodline traces McMaster’s ongoing engagement with her mixed Plains Cree/Métis, Dutch, and British heritage, with particular attention to the histories of her Plains Cree female ancestors from Red Pheasant Cree Nation in present-day Saskatchewan.
Presented across four gallery spaces, the exhibition moves from earlier works that reframe historical representations of Indigenous peoples through contemporary perspectives to more recent pieces rooted in the artist’s return to her father’s home territory.
“The university is deeply committed to advancing the Indigenous Strategic Directions, a campus-wide strategy developed in partnership with Indigenous communities and internal groups,” Provost and Vice-President (Academic) Maureen MacDonald said in her remarks, emphasizing the museum’s role within the university’s broader academic community and its artistic and cultural commitments to presenting Indigenous artists and engagement.
“In this context, I see the museum as an important partner in this work—particularly through the power of experiential learning. Through creative arts, the museum provides a space for us to come together, reflect, and deepen our understanding.”
From left: Provost Maureen MacDonald, local MPP Sandy Shaw and M(M)A Director and Chief Curator Mary Reid at the opening for Meryl McMaster: Bloodline
Bloodline is a powerful, personal, and deeply important exhibition, Hamilton-West-Ancaster-Dundas MPP Sandy Shaw said in her remarks, reflecting on the emotional and intergenerational resonance of the exhibition.
“The intergenerational truths, lessons, and love that Meryl is sharing through these works invite us to approach history with compassion,” Shaw said. “Congratulations to the McMaster Museum of Art for welcoming and hosting this exhibition in our community.”
Meryl McMaster spoke and reflected on the deeply personal nature of the exhibition, describing Bloodline as a journey inseparable from her own life story. “Living with multiple cultural inheritances is something I experience as both complex and deeply enriching,” she said.
“It’s a space of tension, learning, and possibility — and it’s something I return to repeatedly in my work.”
She also thanked M(M)A Senior Curator, Betty Julian, “for your curatorial work and thoughtful guidance, which helped shape an exhibition attentive to proximity, pacing, and how viewers move between stillness and motion within the museum.”
Meryl McMaster, The Grass Grows Deep, 2022. Giclée print, 101.6 x 152.4 cm. Courtesy of the artist, Stephen Bulger Gallery, and Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain
McMaster noted how strongly the work resonated with students at the opening who are navigating identity and change.
“Many spoke about how the work connects to living in a rapidly changing world,” she shared. “Students and others talked about figuring out their identities and navigating mixed or layered backgrounds, and seeing aspects of themselves reflected in the work.”
Hearing how the exhibition sparked personal reflection and conversations beyond the gallery was deeply meaningful, she said. “My hope is that the work holds space for reflection and dialogue, offering a way for these experiences to be visually acknowledged.”
Installation view of Meryl McMaster: Bloodline, at the McMaster Museum of Art.
Meryl McMaster: Bloodline is on view at the McMaster Museum of Art until March 6, 2026. The exhibition is organized and circulated by the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in partnership with Remai Modern.
To learn more about the exhibition, visit the museum’s website. Follow the museum on Instagram for more updates.