(b. 1962)
Located in CT 216 (Language Institute (La Cité) 2nd floor)
© David Garneau. Reproduced with the permission of the artist. Photograph by the University of Regina.
An Interesting Meeting on the Prairies, 2005
Acrylic on canvas
61″ x 37″
University of Regina President’s Art Collection; pc.2006.4
Métis artist David Garneau was born in Edmonton in 1962. He lived there (1962–1977, 1979–80), and Calgary (1977–1979, 1980–1999), and Regina (1999–present). Growing up with a mother who was also an artist, Garneau has always made art. His first exhibition was at the Bearclaw Gallery in Edmonton in 1980. Garneau’s art is inspired by Alex Janvier (Denesuline and Saulteaux), Joanne Cardinal-Schubert (Kainai), and Bob Boyer (Métis), as well as by Métis traditional beading and numerous Western art history traditions and techniques.
Garneau has been a member of the Visual Arts Department since 1999. He is also a curator and writer who received the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Art: Outstanding Achievement (2023), was inducted into the Royal Society of Canada (2023), and received The Order of Gabriel Dumont Silver Medal (2025). He is a member of the Métis Nation of Saskatchewan.
An Interesting Meeting on the Prairies (2005) was commissioned by the University of Regina’s Institute français to celebrate the “Resistance and Convergence: Francophone and Métis Strategies of Identity in Western Canada” conference in 2005. The Institute colours, traces of the logo and other morsels of information linking the work to the Institute and the conference are secreted into the work. Two white-seeming men meet for the first time. The size each other up, try to determine each others’ cultural identity. Each wonder if the other is Métis, Canayen, both or neither. Garneau asks the viewer to consider the complicated issue of Métis identity and whiteness, and to question how such determinations are made.
Last updated: April 1, 2025