ALTAR-NATIVE
Solo Exhibition by Geanna Rae
Originally presented at the Estevan Art Gallery, Altar-Native marked an important chapter in Geanna Rae’s exploration of Indigenous resurgence, colonialism, spirituality, and reclamation. The exhibition brought together altar-like mixed-media works highlighting the sacrifices Indigenous peoples were forced to make in the name of the “gift” of a colonial God. Rae is excited to bring Altar-Native home to her own city of Regina, on Treaty 4 Territory, as the opening exhibition of this new chapter in her practice.
Using the visual language of the sacred altar,
Rae creates spaces of mourning, remembrance, resistance, and reclamation. The works reflect on the disruption and suppression of Indigenous languages, cultures, identities, spiritual practices, and relationships to land through colonization, while recognizing the resilience of those who protected and carried their teachings forward.
Each altar incorporates traditional offerings, natural materials, found objects, and contemporary elements connected to Rae’s practice of Indigenous tattoo medicine. These altars are memorials to ancestors who endured the violence and cultural disruption of colonialism, but they are also acts of resistance. They honor the knowledge, ceremony, identity, and spiritual practices that survived—and continue to be reclaimed.
Altar-Native exists between grief and resurgence, asking what becomes possible when Indigenous peoples reclaim the sacred and assert the right to define, protect, and practice their own ways of knowing.
These works are offerings to our ancestors: to those who were separated from their lands, families, languages, ceremonies, and identities, and to those who survived and carried these teachings forward.
Geanna Rae is a Plains Cree–Métis multidisciplinary artist, Indigenous tattoo practitioner, body piercer, muralist, sculptor, poet, and community arts facilitator based in Regina on Treaty 4 Territory. Geanna is deeply committed to community-based arts and cultural programming, creating opportunities for Indigenous and racialized artists and engaging youth through workshops, mentorship, public art, and collaborative projects. Her practice is rooted in relationship, reciprocity, and Wahkôtowin—the understanding that our responsibilities to one another, our communities, and the land are interconnected.
