KENT MONKMAN (b. 1965) is an interdisciplinary Cree visual artist. A member of ocêkwi sîpiy (Fisher River Cree Nation) in Treaty 5 Territory (Manitoba, Canada), he lives and works between New York City and Toronto.

Known for his provocative interventions into Western European and American art history, Monkman explores themes of colonization, sexuality, loss, and resilience—the complexities of historic and contemporary Indigenous experiences—across painting, film/video, performance, and installation. Monkman’s gender-fluid alter ego Miss Chief Eagle Testickle often appears in his work as a time-travelling, shape-shifting, supernatural being who reverses the colonial gaze to challenge received notions of history and Indigenous peoples.

Monkman’s artworks are held in the permanent collections of numerous institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Denver Art Museum; the Smithsonian American Art Museum; the Hirshhorn Museum; the New York Historical Society; Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal; the Glenbow Museum; the National Gallery of Canada; and macLYON. Private collections that house his works include Art Bridges; the Gochman Family Collection; the Sobey Art Foundation; and the Walker Youngbird Foundation. His works have been exhibited at institutions such as Louvre-Lens; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art; SITE Santa Fe; Museum of Arts and Design; Palais de Tokyo; and the Royal Ontario Museum. In 2019, Monkman was commissioned as the inaugural artist to make two monumental paintings for The Met’s Great Hall Commission project. He has created other site-specific performances at the Royal Ontario Museum; Compton Verney, Warwickshire; and the Denver Art Museum. Monkman has had two nationally touring solo exhibitions in Canada: Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience (2017–2020) and The Triumph of Mischief (2007–2010). In 2025, Monkman’s first internationally touring large-scale solo exhibition History is Painted by the Victors opened at the Denver Art Museum and the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal.

Monkman’s short film and video works, collaboratively made with Gisèle Gordon, have screened at festivals such as the Berlinale (2007, 2008) and the Toronto International Film Festival (2007, 2015). Monkman and Gordon’s literary collaboration, The Memoirs of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle: A True and Exact Accounting of the History of Turtle Island was a finalist for the 2024 Governor General Award’s Literary Award in Fiction. Monkman is the recipient of the Ontario Premier’s Award for Excellence in the Arts (2017), an honorary doctorate degree from Queen’s University (2024) and OCAD University (2017), the Indspire Award (2014), and the Hnatyshyn Foundation Visual Arts Award (2014). In 2023, he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada—Canada’s highest civilian honour—and in 2025, he received the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts.

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