“Maria Hupfield is a maker, a mover, a connector, an Anishinaabe-kwe of Wasauksing First Nation. Like the artist herself, Hupfield’s work is never static. Her performances, sculptures and installations reference different spans and scales of times. She values expansive exchange over isolation, and inclusion over hierarchy.”

– Vanessa Dion Fletcher, Art in America, October 2017

 

Artist statement

Maria Hupfield, a transdisciplinary artist, crosses boundaries at the intersection of performance art and design. She is deeply invested in embodied practice, Native feminisms, and ethical collaborative processes. Her work positions the art object as active belongings, with sculptures becoming performers in a form of object choreography between artist, audience, and art gallery; her works are engaged in an ongoing series of relations with community, places, ideas, and materials. She is an urban off-reservation member of the Anishinabek People belonging to Wasauksing First Nation in Ontario.

 

Biography

Hupfield is the inaugural City of Toronto artist in residence and was awarded the Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts Prize 2023. Her art travelled nationally with “Beat Nation”, grunt gallery, Vancouver; as a solo project “Nine Years Towards the Sun” at the Heard Museum, Phoenix Arizona USA; and internationally with “The One Who Keeps on Giving”, The Power Plant, Toronto. Her work was also shown at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Galerie de l’UQAM, Art Gallery of Ontario and the National Gallery of Canada, NONAM – Nordamerika Native Museum Zurich, National Museum of the American Indian, Museum of Arts and Design in New York, Abrons Arts Center, Center for Art – Research and Alliances (CARA), BRIC House Gallery, The Bronx Museum, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, SITE SANTA FE and the Toronto Biennial of Art, amongst others.