Emerging Artists

Kiona Callihoo Ligtvoet

2022

  • Visual Arts
  • Edmonton

Ligtvoet looks to experiences with family and the land they live and work on to create paintings, prints and installations that function as both a personal archive, as well as non-linear story telling. Her emotionally charged images examine questions of identity, loss and displacement, as well as the hope that can emerge from moments of joy between family and friends.

– Emerging Artist adjudicators

Kiona Callihoo Ligtvoet (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist practicing in amiskwaciwâskahikan on Treaty 6 Territory. Kiona grew up west of Edmonton near the hamlet of Calahoo where she lived with her moshom and relatives on scrip land. Her family lines are Cree and Métis descending from Michel First Nation, as well as Dutch/ mixed European. Kiona works in painting, printmaking and drawing, recollecting personal stories of grief and tenderness. Her practice uses a non-linear telling of her memories through narrative work as a form of diaristic archiving. It draws from feelings of loss and enfranchisement, but also from deep belly laughter, and a gentle fondness for where the histories between herself and her family overlap and disperse.

Most recent exhibitions have been sahkitok mistahi at Ociciwan Contemporary Art Centre (2021), and her solo show These Are the Things at Latitude 53 (2021). She co-curated the soil between plants with Making Space (2022), and is currently writing her debut graphic novel We Were Younger Once (2022). Working alongside other artists in initiatives of community care, Kiona co-organizes Making Space in partnership with Sanaa Humayun. Making Space is a visual-arts focused BIPOC peer mentorship collective.

Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee Medal 2022

  • We Fell Asleep in Cold Damp Grass
  • This Wasn’t Surrendered
  • These Bottles Have Been Empty for Years
  • The Heat Made our Noses Bleed

NEWS AND OTHER WORK

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