Rhayne Vermette, Installation view at the 2024 Sobey Art Award exhibition, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Rhayne Vermette, Installation view at the 2024 Sobey Art Award exhibition, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 4 October 2024 – 6 April 2025. © Rhayne Vermette Photo: NGC

Sobey Art Award 2024: Rhayne Vermette

Divya Mehra: Over the past decade, Rhayne Vermette has produced thoughtful and nuanced visual examinations of belonging, community, ways of seeing and land. Vermette’s films, animations, photographs and two-dimensional collages make visible the vastness of the prairie landscape, the beauty of destruction and the complexities of Métis identity.

In anticipation of the publication the Sobey Art Award 2024 exhibition catalogue, Vermette and I engaged in an image exchange on our phones. This conversation resulted in a record that generously offers insight into her work and creative process. The following are my collages of her images from that conversation. Vermette’s images are drawn from various sources, including her archive and sketchbooks, and they speak to Manitoba, invisibility, ancestry, intimacy, being seen, labour, humour and family.   

Collage of images, including stills from Rhayne Vermette's videos, photo of Rhayne and Mazzy vermitte and excerpts from A New Model of the Universe and Exovede in the Darkroom

Top, from left: iMessage screenshot (2024) of a quotation from P.D. Ouspensky; A New Model of the Universe  (1931; Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1997); still image from The Cassandra Cat (1963), directed by Vojtěch Jasný; excerpt from Stephen Broomer and Irene Bindi, eds., Exovede in the Darkroom: The Films of Rhayne Vermette (Winnipeg: ARP Publishing, 2023); bottom from left to full right: image by @occultbot on X; photo of Rhayne and Mazzy Vermette (2020) by Jude Vermette; Manners as Sun (2020) by Rhayne Vermette; Louis Riel monument  in a snowstorm (2024) by Rhayne Vermette

Collage comprising stills from Rhayne Vermettre's films; memes; documentation of The Hanged Man card from The Title Cards performance and project by Vermette and Anthony Neustaedter; various photographs; still from The Egg by Robert Bélisle and Jean-Franç

Top, from left: meme (2024) found on X by @lanottebianche; excerpt from Lakshmi Gill, Novena to St. Jude Thaddeus (Fredericton: Fiddlehead Poetry Books, 1979); documentation of The Hanged Man card from The Title Cards (2022), a performance and project by Rhayne Vermette and Anthony Neustaedter; still image of Jacqueline Vermette from Ste. Anne (2021) by Rhayne Vermette; bottom, from left: photo of Rhayne, Jude and Roger Vermette in a fort (1980s) by Jacqueline Vermette; photo of Rhayne Vermette (2019) by Chrystal Gray; photo of Marge and Howard Adams (1979), from the Gabriel Dumont Institute; overlay: still image from The Egg (1979) directed by Robert Bélisle and Jean-François Pouliot; modified screenshot from The Rehearsal (2022) directed by Nathan Fielder; overlay: meme (2023), by 24memespersecond on Instagram.

Collage of stills from Rhayne Vermette's films; memes; photo of Sun Ra by Ming Smith; photo of Bennett Vermette in a balaclava; drawing by Ed Ackerman; image by @occultbot on X; overlay: still image from The Dream directed by Mohammad Malas

Top, from left to right: Sun (2021) by Rhayne Vermette and meme (2023), found on  r/WitchesVsPatriarchy; photo of Sun Ra (1978) by Ming Smith; photo of Bennett Vermette in a balaclava (2023) by Jude Vermette; drawing (2023) by Ed Ackerman; bottom, from left to right: photo of dude with VR headset (2024) by Rhayne Vermette; image by @occultbot on X; overlay: excerpt from an interview with Nina Simone, in Arthur Taylor, Notes and Tones: Musician-to-Musician Interviews (1977; New York: Da Capo Press, 1993); still image from The Dream (1987), directed by Mohammad Malas.

Collage comprising various photographs and still images from films by Rhayne Vermette

Top, from left: photo of Rhayne’s cousins behind the scenes of Ste. Anne (2018) by Rhayne Vermette; Roger Vermette from Les Châssis de Lourdes (2016) by Rhayne Vermette; bottom, from left to right: still image from Scene Missing (2015) by Rhayne Vermette; still image from Tudor Village: a one shot deal (2012) by Rhayne Vermette; photo of Rhayne Vermette and her godfather, Eugene Vermette, behind the scenes of Levers (2024) by Heidi Phillips; photo of the sun in Manitoba during the forest fires (2019) by Rhayne Vermette.   

 

The 2024 Sobey Art Award Exhibition is on view at the National Gallery of Canada from October 4, 2024 until April 6, 2025, with the winner being announced in November 2024. The Sobey Art Award is funded by the Sobey Art Foundation and is organized and presented by the National Gallery of Canada. Share this article and subscribe to our newsletters to stay up-to-date on the latest articles, Gallery exhibitions, news and events, and to learn more about art in Canada.​

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