Indigenous Artist in Residence

2026 Indigenous Artist in Residence

The 2026 Indigenous Artist in Residence program marks its fifth year. The City of Regina is supporting five Indigenous artists through paid residencies focused on artistic creation, community engagement and cultural continuity.

The 2026 artists are Phyllis Poitras-Jarrett, Melanie Monique Rose, Torrie Ironstar, Lorne Kequatooway and Brianna LaPlante.

^{Pictured left to right: Melanie Monique Rose, Lorne Kequatooway, Torrie Ironstar, Brianna LaPlante and Phyllis Poitras-Jarrett}

The artists were selected through an open call for First Nations, Inuit and Métis artists living in Regina. Applications were reviewed by an expert panel of Indigenous artists and art professionals from Treaty 4 Territory.

The Indigenous Artist in Residence program is guided by the 2026 theme of belonging, kinship and continuity, which explores connections to place, relationships and cultural continuity across generations. Through kâ-nâsihcikêwin, the City’s Indigenous Framework, it reflects the City’s commitment to embedding Indigenous worldviews in municipal operations. Rooted in the Treaty Principle of miskâsowin, finding one’s sense of origin, belonging and centre, it creates opportunities to showcase Indigenous art and to shape spaces that honour the history and culture of the original peoples of Treaty 4 Territory.

The 2026 artists will create new works that expand Indigenous representation in the City of Regina’s Civic Art Collection. They will also lead public workshops and community engagement activities at the Neil Balkwill Civic Arts Centre, creating opportunities for residents to engage directly with Indigenous art, storytelling and creative processes.

The residency runs from June to October 2026. A final exhibition showcasing new works by the 2026 Indigenous Artists in Residence will be held at the Art Gallery of Regina from November 27 to the end of December 2026. The exhibition will include new works created through the 2026 residency alongside selected works by previous artists from the program.

2026 Artists 

Brianna LaPlante

Brianna LaPlante is an Anishinaabe/nehiyaw/Michif artist, muralist and emerging curator from Fishing Lake First Nation, currently living in oskana kâ-asastêki. She completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Arts from the First Nations University of Canada in 2023.

LaPlante works across painting, drawing, printmaking, muralism, performance and design. Her practice is rooted in community-engaged creation and Indigenous knowledge systems. Her work explores reclamation, identity, time, healing and connection. Her practice centres culturally grounded relationships and creates spaces where Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities can gather, learn and reconnect through art.

For the residency, LaPlante will create a large-scale mixed-media beaded painting titled The Future Is a Pattern We Make. The work will incorporate braided materials and reflect the 2026 theme of belonging, kinship and continuity.

 

 

Lorne Kequatooway

Lorne Kequatooway is originally from the Zagimē Anishinabēk First Nation in Treaty 4 Territory. He is committed to sharing and preserving culture in Saskatchewan and is a co-founder of Buffalo People Arts Institute. Through storytelling and hands-on learning, Kequatooway teaches cultural awareness and shares knowledge through interactive buffalo hide-tanning experiences.

His practice includes hide tanning, parfleche, leatherwork, beading, sewing, moccasin and drum making, regalia production and ceramics. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Indigenous Arts from First Nations University of Canada in 2025 and is currently enrolled in a post-baccalaureate certificate in visual arts, with a focus on ceramics. For the residency, Kequatooway will create a buffalo sculpture using a buffalo bone ash casting slip and a sacred medicine glaze infused with smudge ash and buffalo blood.

 

 

Melanie Monique Rose

Melanie Monique Rose is a Métis/Ukrainian artist from Regina, Treaty 4 Territory and a citizen of the Métis Nation–Saskatchewan. She is a long-time member and board member of Sâkêwêwak Artists’ Collective.

Rose works as an artist, curator, educator and community collaborator. Her practice explores kinship and relationships among land, people and more-than-human relations. Her work often uses plant-based imagery and Métis worldviews to carry forward ancestral knowledge and imagine decolonial futures.

For the residency, Rose will create a new work titled 11th – the place where we live, extending her ongoing series The Flower People. Using felted pieces, collected blankets and floral imagery, the work will explore identity, heritage, people, place and land while reflecting the 2026 theme of belonging, kinship and continuity.

 

 

Phyllis Poitras-Jarrett

Phyllis Poitras-Jarrett is a Regina-based Métis artist. She creates vibrant floral beadwork-textured paintings that honour her Métis heritage as one of the “Flower Beadwork People.”  Her work weaves together colourful botanical imagery with gentle animal symbolism and reflects respect for Mother Earth and mindful relationships with the natural world.

For the residency, Poitras-Jarrett will create a triptych of floral beadwork-textured paintings on canvas, based on plants and animals observed during daily walks. The artwork will include one 40" x 36" canvas and two 16" x 36" canvases. She will also create a short seasonal video compilation connected to the work.

 

 

Torrie Ironstar

Torrie Ironstar is a Deaf Nakoda artist from Regina. Their practice is shaped by Deaf experience and ways of engaging through sight, body and intuition. Their work blends Indigenous worldviews with beadwork-inspired geometry, bold colour, geometric abstraction and spiritual elements.

Ironstar’s work explores identity, resilience, Indigenous futures and collective memory. Their Two-Spirit identity also informs their exploration of balance, fluidity and visibility for Deaf, Indigenous and Two-Spirit communities.

For the residency, Ironstar will create a new body of three to four paintings. The paintings will explore belonging, kinship and continuity through visual language.

2025 Indigenous Artist in Residence 

Jessie Ray Short is an artist, filmmaker and independent curator of Métis, Ukrainian and German descent and a citizen of the Métis Nation of Saskatchewan.
 
During her residency, Jessie explored themes of Indigenous futurism through a series of public-facing activities, including a Power Glove Crafting workshop, open studios, an artist talk and a table read of a short film script presented alongside two Rugaru maquettes, referencing the Rugaru, a shapeshifting wolf figure from Métis traditional stories. Her final body of work focused on the Rugaru, inspired by a recurring childhood dream.
 
Jessie Ray Short’s practice explores connections within the histories of Michif communities across the Prairies. Her work engages with ideas of space and time, Indigenous and settler histories, Michif visual culture, personal narrative and spiritual and scientific belief systems, as well as concepts such as parallel universes, electricity and non-human beings. She works across film and video, performance, installation, finger weaving, sewing and writing.

Jessie Ray Short is based in Regina, Saskatchewan, Treaty 4 Territory, located between the Michif communities of Willow Bunch and Park Valley, where her ancestors lived.

2024 Indigenous Artist in Residence

Bee Bird, a rising multidisciplinary artist from the Montreal Lake Cree Nation, has completed his term as the City of Regina’s 2024 Indigenous Artist in Residence.

During his residency, Bee Bird explored the theme of “Urban Indigeneity”. He hosted public engagement sessions focusing on collaborative community projects and a series of artist talks to highlight Indigenous artists living and working in Regina. His work included poetry videos that draw from his experiences as a journalist, multimedia artist and his cultural heritage.

 

The City issued an open call for the Indigenous Artist in Residence in April 2024. An expert panel of Indigenous art professionals reviewed several applications from local artists who submitted proposals.

The residency supports an Indigenous artist (First Nations, Métis, or Inuit) in a part-time capacity, providing them with studio space within City of Regina facilities to explore their art practice, facilitate community engagement, and create works of art for the City's Civic Art Collection. The Indigenous Artist in Residence Program celebrates and amplifies Indigenous voices, enhancing the artistic and cultural presence in our community.

2023 Indigenous Artist in Residence

Larissa Kitchemonia is a local Anishnaabe-Saulteaux woman from The Key First Nation and the City of Regina’s second Indigenous Artist in Residence.

During her residency, Larissa explored the theme of ‘Urban Indigeneity’. Kitchemonia hosted public engagement sessions that focused on a collaborative community project of ribbon skirt, shirt sewing and medicine pouch making along with a series of artist talks to highlight Indigenous artists that live and work in Regina. Her artwork is an acrylic painting that captures the likeness of the participants who attended her sessions.

Kitchemonia’s painting, bead work and customary art practice is informed by themes of nature, womanhood and motherhood embedded with traditional, First Nation ideology and practices. 

Kitchemonia has completed a bachelor’s degree in Indigenous Fine Arts from the First Nations University of Canada, and she is a Master of Interdisciplinary Fine Arts candidate at the University of Regina. Her overall approach to art is to acknowledge her culture and create art as a way of evoking storytelling and learning.

2022 Indigenous Artist in Residence

Audie Murray, a local Michif visual artist based in Oskana kâ-asastêki (Regina, Saskatchewan; Treaty 4 territory), was selected as the City’s first ever Indigenous Artist in Residence.

During her residency, Audie explored the theme of ‘Urban Indigeneity’. Her artwork proposal involved a large-scale beaded wall hanging done through the process of by hand bead weaving. Murray also supported local youth through a youth residency where they learned beadwork and worked alongside local cultural leaders.

Murray’s art practice is informed by themes of contemporary culture, embodied experiences and lived dualities. These modes of working assist with the recentering of our collective connection to the body, ancestral knowledge systems, space and time.

Murray holds a visual arts diploma from Camosun College, a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Regina, and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Calgary. She has exhibited widely, including at the Independent Art Fair, NYC; The Vancouver Art Gallery; Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow; and the Anchorage Museum. Murray is represented by Fazakas Gallery, located on Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Səl̓ílwətaʔ, and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm territory (Vancouver, B.C.).