Joseph Tisiga

Joseph Tisiga (born 1984) is a multi-disciplinary artist and a member of the Kaska Dena Nation. He lives and works in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada.

Joseph was born in Edmonton, Alberta and relocated to Whitehorse, Yukon when he was 8 with his mother and brother. He studied at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in his twenties before returning to Whitehorse. In his 20s, Tisiga worked as a residential-support and day-program worker for an NGO that assists people living with mental and physical disabilities, and more recently he has worked at the Skookum Jim Friendship Centre, first as a program support worker and later as manager of an emergency youth shelter. This work has informed Tisiga's artistic practice withphilosophies of support that are connected to harm-reduction modalities, trauma awareness and non-biased neutrality.

Tisiga's multidisciplinary practice includes performance, photography, sculpture, and installation, but painting and drawing are at the root of all his work. His work examines notions of identity, cultural and social inheritance, the mundane, the metaphysical and the mythological. In 2009 Tisiga developed what he refers to as "Indian Brand Corporation" (IBC) to explore the conditions of First Nations people and how Indigenous communities are adapting to the modern world. Tisiga was long-listed for the Sobey Art Award in 2011 and in 2009 he was semi-finalist for the RBC Painting Competition.

Joseph was the recipient of a REVEAL Indigenous Art Award / Prix en art autochtone from the Hnatyshyn Foundation in 2017 and a Historica Dominion ‘Our Story’ Visual Arts Award in 2011.

• National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
• Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal
• Royal Bank of Canada
• Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery

• Tales of an Empty Cabin: Somebody Nobody Was…, Audain Art Museum, Whistler (2019).
• I Continue to Shape, Art Museum at the University of Toronto, Toronto (2018)
• IBC: They say he hit them with his gloves, Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, Kitchener (2017)
• INSURGENCE/RESURGENCE, The Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg (2017)
• Wood Land School: Kahatenhstánion tsi na’tetiatere ne Iotohrkó:wa tánon Iotohrha / Drawing Lines from January to December / Traçant des lignes de janvier à décembre, SBC Gallery of Contemporary Art, Montréal (2017)
• IBC: First Hole: Death Prophecy Denied, Yukon Art Centre, Whitehorse (2016)
• An Evening Redness in the West, Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Santa Fe, NM (2015)
• Oh, Canada, Nickle Galleries, Illingworth Kerr Gallery, Esker Foundation and Glenbow Museum, Calgary (2015)
• Oh, Canada, Confederation Centre Art Gallery, Charlottetown, Galerie Sans Nom and Galerie Louis-et-Reuben-Cohen, Moncton, and Owens Gallery, Sackville (2014)
• Traversing Yukon Landscapes, Yukon Arts Centre, Whitehorse (2014)
• Larger Than Life, Ottawa Art Gallery, Ottawa (2014)
• Northern Exposures, SAW Gallery, Ottawa (2014)
• The Painting Project, l'UQAM Gallery, Montréal (2014)
• Oh Canada, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams, MA, USA (2012-13)
• Sleep of Reason, Yukon Arts Centre, Whitehorse (2012)
• Untrue North, Yukon Arts Centre, Whitehorse (2012)
• IBC Summoning the White Shaman, Conjuring the Red Chief, ODD Gallery, Dawson City (2011)
• IBC Perge, Arts Underground, Whitehorse (2010)
• Monster, West Vancouver Museum (now West Vancouver Art Museum), Vancouver (2010)
• RBC Painting Competition, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Montréal (2009)
• Indian Brand Corporation, Yukon Arts Centre, Whitehorse (2009)
• Indigenous Incisions, Yukon Arts Centre, Whitehorse (2008)