“Maa-chi niw famii katawashishiw – my beautiful family” by Tracy Charette Fehr
“Maa-chi niw famii katawashishiw – my beautiful family” by Tracy Charette Fehr
October 2-18, 2025
The Studio
This exhibit pays homage to my Charette and Nault family who originate from St Norbert and LaRochelle and St Malo, Manitoba. My first 6 1/2 years of life were filled with memories of the land and the Rat River that flowed across the road from the farm house. As a child, my weekends were spent on the farm exploring the nearby fields, gathering prairie flowers and smelling the wild roses. Memories are scented with the aroma of hay, grasses and fresh breezes after the prairie rain. It is, however, flashbacks of my family; mother, aunties and my grandfather that are the most poignant for me. Remembrances of them have sustained me and have fed my connection to land and identity most of my life.
The works in “Maa-chi niw famii katawashishiw – my beautiful family”, reference these early years and connection to family and place through mixed media portraits that depict my family and ancestors. Photo images are stitched and beaded onto textiles eco-dyed with foliage from the land. My grandparents’ labours of sewing and trapping are referenced in the furs, stretchers, and in each hand stitched and patched piece of fabric. Themes of resilience, courage and identity are communicated in loving stitches that reconnect and repair across time and place.
BIO
Tracy Charette Fehr is an interdisciplinary artist with a passion for story, family, and history. She completed her BFA in 2015 and a MFA at the University of Manitoba in 2022. She is a Red River Métis citizen who has a special interest in Indigenous arts and culture including handwork in beading, quill, embroidery, and clay. She has exhibited at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, Mann Art Gallery, Mennonite Heritage Gallery, and Le Musée de Saint-Boniface Museum. Tracy is the founder and lead artist of Honouring Our Métis Mothers, a collaborative art project celebrating the lives of women and girls of the Red River Métis Nation across the Homeland.