Edge of Seventeen by Kevin McKenzie

 Biography

Kevin McKenzie is Cree/Métis, born in Regina, Saskatchewan. He is a member of the Cowessess First Nation of Saskatchewan,Treaty 4. He holds a BFA and an MFA from the University of Regina.

During his 30-year art practice, McKenzie has exhibited nationally and internationally, notable exhibitions include Changing Hands: Art Without Reservation II, Museum of Arts and Design, New York. He also participated in Don’t Stop Me Now, National Gallery of Canada. If We Never Met, Pataka Art Gallery Museum, New Zealand. His work is represented in Transformer: Native Art in Light and Sound, at the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institute, New York, November 2017- Jan. 2019. His work was selected as the inaugural exhibition titled ASAP at Urban Shaman Contemporary Aboriginal Art Satellite Gallery Santa Fe, via Vital Spaces Santa Fe, NM USA.

McKenzie’s artwork is represented in the collections of; the National Gallery of Canada, the MacKenzie Art Gallery, Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada, Manitoba Hydro Corporation, the President’s Art Collection University of Regina, First Nations University of Canada, Comox Valley Art Gallery, the Saskatchewan Arts Board and the Dunlop Art Gallery. He has a permanent public sculpture in Whistler B.C. commissioned by VANOC Cultural Olympiad 2010. In 2022 he was commissioned by the Presidents Office at Brandon University to produce a public sculpture dedicated to Truth and Reconciliation titled “Healing Together”. McKenzie lives in Brandon, Manitoba, he works at Brandon University as an instructor at Ishkaatbatens Waasa 

 Artist Statement

“My father was a survivor of the Lebret (Qu’Appelle) Indian Industrial Residential School. Unfortunately, he did not survive the accumulated effects of intergenerational trauma. We lost our dear father in 1978, he was 39 years old, I was seventeen.” - Kevin McKenzie

Edge of Seventeen collects and preserves the memories and knowledge McKenzie’s father instilled in Kevin as a child, translating his father’s teachings and passion for hockey into a contemporary Indigenous experience. The exhibition serves as a portal, linking repressed childhood memories of McKenzie’s father to his current state of Indigenous regeneration and resistance to colonial assimilation. Edge of Seventeen reflects a personal transformation, through a process of reconstructing Indigenous identity and masculinity.

Kevin McKenzie is Cree/Métis, Saskatchewan artist, based in Brandon, Manitoba. He is a member of the Cowessess First Nation of Saskatchewan, Treaty 4. He holds a BFA and an MFA from the University of Regina. McKenzie has exhibited nationally and internationally at notable galleries such as Museum of Arts and Design, New York, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, and Pataka Art Gallery Museum, New Zealand. McKenzie's artwork is represented in numerous public and corporate collections and has a permanent public sculpture in Whistler B.C. commissioned by VANOC Cultural Olympiad 2010. In 2022 he was commissioned by the President’s Office at Brandon University to produce a public sculpture dedicated to Truth and Reconciliation. Currently, McKenzie is an assistant professor and faculty member in the IWGI Department of Visual Art at Brandon University.