Bonnie Devine facts for kids

Bonnie Devine was born on April 12, 1952. She is a talented artist, sculptor, and writer from the Serpent River First Nation in Ontario, Canada. She lives and works in Toronto. Bonnie Devine is also a professor at OCAD University, where she helped start the Indigenous Visual Culture Program.

About Bonnie Devine

Bonnie Devine grew up in Toronto. She is a member of the Serpent River First Nation. She studied art at the Ontario College of Art and Design, finishing in 1997. Later, she earned her Master of Fine Arts degree from York University in 1999.

Bonnie Devine has taught art at several universities. These include York University and Queen's University. She also taught at the Centre for Indigenous Theatre. In 2008, she became a full-time teacher at OCAD University. There, she helped create a special program. It focuses on Indigenous Visual Culture.

Her Artworks

Bonnie Devine is a conceptual artist. This means her art often explores ideas and messages. She uses many different materials in her work. Sometimes she combines traditional items with unusual ones.

For example, in her 2007 show called Medicine River, she made huge knitting needles. They were eight feet long! With these, she knitted 250 feet of copper cable. This artwork helped people think about water pollution. It highlighted problems with the water system in Kashechewan.

She has also made full-sized canoes out of paper. In her 2009 piece, New Earth Braid, she used natural materials like reeds. Bonnie Devine also creates art directly on the land. Her art is greatly inspired by the stories and traditions of the Ojibwa people.

Art Shows and Exhibitions

Bonnie Devine's art has been shown all over the world. Her work has been in solo and group exhibitions. You can find her art in Canada, the U.S., South America, Russia, and Europe.

In 2010, she had a solo show called Writing Home. Another important exhibition was Bonnie Devine: The Tecumseh Papers. This show was held at the Art Gallery of Windsor. Her art was also part of a big exhibition. It was called Before and after the Horizon: Anishinaabe Artists of the Great Lakes. This show was at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Awards and Recognition

Bonnie Devine has won many awards for her amazing art. In 2002, she won Best Experimental Video. This was at the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival. She also received the Toronto Arts Awards Visual Arts Protégé Award in 2001.

In 1999, she won the Curry Award from the Ontario Society of Artists. She has also received many awards from the Ontario College of Art and Design. In 2011, she was chosen for the Eiteljorg Museum fellowship. A very special award she received was the Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts in 2021.

Published Work

• Devine, Bonnie, Duke Redbird, and Robert Houle. The Drawings and Paintings of Daphne Odjig: A Retrospective Exhibition. Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 2007. ISBN: 978-0-88884-840-6.