In Keeping With Myself logo
Logo de Fidèle À Moi-Même

In Keeping with Myself features works by 19 contemporary Indigenous and Canadian artists who use self-portraiture as a means of reconciling deeply personal challenges and creating a path towards healing. Each artist explores the internal self and the physical self, within the context and constraints of the world around us. The resulting artworks create spaces for the artists to fully enact themselves, presenting their meditations to us, the viewers. 

Self-portraiture can come from a wide range of media — from digital and film photography to installation, projection, collage, mixed media, beadwork, sculpture, 3D renderings, textiles, journal entries, interviews and collaborations. The extensive range of media and topics covered in these artworks makes it easier for us to visit the artists’ spaces and to build our own networks of self-reflexivity towards a path of healing.



In Keeping with Myself is organized by the Portrait Gallery of Canada and guest curator Darren Pottie.

Darren Pottie is an Ottawa-based curator whose focus is the intersection between contemporary craft and lens-based media. Currently employed as the Gallery Manager and Artist Residency Coordinator at the School of Photography Arts: Ottawa (SPAO), his work is dedicated to presenting and raising the platform of photo-based artists across Canada and beyond. Before joining SPAO, he curated many notable exhibitions, including ŚXEL,ES, featuring contemporary Indigenous painters along the Northwest Coast; YUXAN'S KIS'O, hereditary Kwakwaka'wakw Chief Calvin Hunt’s first solo exhibition; and (R)EVOLVING WHORL(D) by Coast Salish artists lesLIE, Dylan Thomas and Chris Paul. Pottie’s passion lies in helping the public discover the wealth of art and culture within the many traditional territories across Canada.


Artist Talks

Annie France Noël

In November 2021, guest curator Darren Pottie met with Annie France Noël, one of the 19 artists participating in the Portrait Gallery of Canada's exhibition In Keeping with Myself, for a virtual conversation about her work. (This conversation is in French, with French subtitles.)


Jean-Sébastien Gauthier

Art meets science in this fabulous exchange between Saskatoon’s Jean-Sébastien Gauthier, one of the 19 artists participating in our online “In Keeping with Myself” exhibition, and our guest curator Darren Pottie.

Learn about Canada’s synchrotron, zebrafish, the history of pregnancy tests, the Dakota connection to the War of 1812, and so much more.


Zinnia Naqvi

In February 2022, guest curator Darren Pottie met with Zinnia Naqvi over Zoom to talk about her "Dear Nani" series as well as a recently published book about the series.

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