"What I've seen and felt along the pathway back to the Great Law of Peace I've recorded as reminders that strengthen me to move forward. And as I come through the thorny bushes towards the light of the clearing, I hesitate until the knowledge gathered between footsteps becomes visible and my breath repeats the phrase in constant return."
- Greg Staats
Greg Staats - Skarù:reˀ (Tuscarora) / Kanien'kehá:ka (Mohawk) b. 1963, Ohsweken, Six Nations of the Grand River Territory. He is a Toronto-based artist whose ongoing Hodinöhsö:ni' restorative aesthetic accumulates knowledge from the worldview found within language and defines the plurality of relationships with trauma and renewal. His lens-based language documents cycles of return towards a complete Onkwehón:we neha (our original ways). Staats articulates his on-reserve lived experience positionality in visual forms including: text works, photography, embodied wampum sculpture, performance, installation, and video.
Greg Staats studied Applied Photography at Sheridan College, 1983. Solo exhibitions include: Art Gallery of Hamilton, Art Gallery of Ontario, daphne Indigenous Art Centre, Kelowna Art Gallery, McMaster Museum of Art, KWAG, Mercer Union, Gallery TPW, G44, Trinity Square Video/Images Festival and CONTACT Photo Festival at Todmorden Mills Heritage site. Group exhibitions include: AGYU, Belkin Art Gallery, National Gallery of Canada, Varley Art Gallery (OAAG award 2019) and MOCNA Sante Fe. Residencies include: AGO, Open Studio, the Banff Centre, AGYU, TSV/Images, and University of Waterloo Longhouse Labs Fellowship. Staats was awarded the Toronto Arts Foundation's Inaugural Indigenous Artist Award (2021), and the 2024 Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts.
