Rolande Souliere

Rolande (Wassay) Souliere is Anishinaabe, a member of Michipicoten First Nation, born and raised in Toronto, Canada and an Australian citizen who works between Australia and Canada. Souliere has a PhD, MVA, and BVA from Sydney College of the Arts, The University of Sydney. Souliere became a visual artist after moving to Sydney in the late 1990s and enrolling in a BVA at Sydney College of the Arts. Prior to this, Souliere's artistic expression was embedded in her Anishinaabe culture where she learned many aspects of her culture by attending, as child and up to her teens, a First Nations after-school program, sponsored by the Canadian government. This experience is ingrained in Souliere's work, where repetitive processes of wrapping, weaving, stacking, stitching and layering, and the use of tactile and colourful materials are utilized to address the social, political, and cultural aspects of Indigeneity internationally and globally. Souliere's technique combines abstraction and the assisted readymade with handmade processes to discuss Indigenous narratives internationally. Construction road tape, reflective road signage, automobile headlights and brake lights, variable message boards, construction road materials and household items are her trademarks. These universal materials are stripped from their usual context, manipulated and repurposed into dynamic installations.

Rolande Souliere, 2023