ARTIST
RENÉE CONDO

Renee Condo (b.1979) is a contemporary visual artist of Mi’gmaw First Nation ancestry from the community of Gesgapegiag. She is currently working in Tiohtià:ke | Montréal. Condo’s work is a practice-based investigation into the power of the bead to communicate ideas derived from the reflection on and application of a Mi’kmaw worldview.

Condo holds a BFA in studio arts (with Distinction), and an MFA in sculpture from Concordia University. She is the recipient of several bursaries and scholarships, some of which include Concordia Merit Scholarship, Concordia University Indigenous Graduate Scholarship, Indspire Building Brighter Futures: Bursaries and Scholarships. Condo has received support by way of grants from the Conseil des art de Montréal and the Canada Council for the Arts. She has participated in group exhibitions including the 5th edition of the Contemporary Native Art Biennial (BACA) (2022). Her solo exhibitions include Shifting Perspectives at the Warren G. Flowers Gallery, Dawson College, Montreal (2023), and Pemitg - Heart Knowledge at Galerie Laroche/Joncas, Montreal (2021). She completed her first public artwork in 2021, installed in Laval, Quebec. Condo’s work is represented in numerous collections, including Royal Bank of Canada, Scotiabank and TD Bank.

Renée Condo’s work centers on a Mi’gmaq worldview with a particular interest in connectedness and interdependence. Flow, balance, harmony, duality, unity, interconnectedness, interdependence, the importance of reciprocity, soul/spirit: Mi’gmaq traditional knowledge contains a comprehensive structure in which these ideas are central. “Through a material and spiritual practice, I honour my personal discovery and growing understanding of this beautifully holistic framework, bringing focus to spirit as energy, as flow (Pemi), while centering heart knowledge, an intuitive knowledge premised on the Mi’gmaq fundamental law of relating through Empathetic Love. The bead as fundamental entity, as infinite potentiality, can appear as divided, as unit, as part, but is at once whole and all-encompassing, holding secrets of the world and to the nature of reality.” — Renée Condo