Luke Parnell’s artistic practice plays amidst notions of past, present and future. He’s primarily concerned with investigating oral histories and contemporary iterations within Northwest Coast Indigenous art. Raised on the western coast of Canada in a community where Indigenous and non-Indigenous people live together, Parnell is Wilp Laxgiik Nisga’a from Gingolx on his mother’s side and Haida from Massett on his father’s side. He’s informed both by tradition—he completed an apprenticeship with a Master Northwest Coast Indigenous carver—and by academia: he holds both a BFA and an MAA from OCADU and ECUAD, respectively. A multidisciplinary artist and assistant professor at OCADU, his work has been shown in a range of exhibitions at the National Gallery of Canada, the MacLaren Art Centre and more.

Parnell’s work has been on display at least three times in the past year alone. Luke Parnell: Repeat the Chorus Three Times is currently on view at the Varley Art Gallery of Markham until September. Thanks to the dynamic virtual tour of the exhibition, visitors can immerse themselves in the space and the work—outside of the gallery walls. Indigenous History in Colour was first hosted by MKG127 in 2020 and travelled to the Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art in 2021. Included in this exhibition and later acquired by the AGO is Re-Contextualizing the De-Consecrated (2014). As a series of seven acrylic on canvas paintings and printed wall texts, it responds directly to how Northwest Coast Indigenous culture has been and continues to be contextualized in the museum space. More specifically, it maps the trajectory of Northwest Coast Indigenous art from being seen from the (White) colonial gaze in the 20th century to being seen with Indigenous perspectives at the forefront in recent years.