The artworks in Wally Dion’s exhibition, a thousand tiny prayers, address the related practices of plaiting and stitching as repetitive, generative processes that produce something stronger and more resilient than their composite parts. Many strands of hair can be plaited into sturdy braids. Small scraps of fabric can be stitched together to create a beautiful, functional quilt or blanket. Our communities and ecosystems are similarly composed of individuals and discrete elements that exist within a complex network of relations, stronger and more resilient because of the interdependencies and connections that bind them together.

Dion works in series, but these series often blend or bleed into one another: a series of gossamer-light, semi-translucent star blankets honour discrete elements of the tall grass prairie biome: grasses and wildflowers, the pollinators that propagate them, the bison that graze on them, and the elements that perpetuate the cycles of growth, destruction, and regeneration. Seen together, through one another, Dion’s quilts speak to the rich biodiversity of the Prairie landscape and the delicate, harmonious balance necessary to sustain it. 

A related series features a repeated image of an Indigenous person whose hair is worn in two tight braids, the kind often seen on boxers or mixed martial artists. This hairstyle is protective; keeping hair out of the fighter’s eyes and preventing it from being pulled out during a fight. Braids also carry cultural significance; for many Indigenous people, long hair, often braided, symbolizes strength, spirit, wisdom, care, and a connection to ancestors, the Creator, and the Earth. And as young children, particularly boys, would have their hair cut short as part of the assimilationist project of residential schools (a violence not unheard of today), long hair is also a symbol of Indigenous resistance to colonial oppression. Dion explores the significance of braids through composite portraits which combine images of the sitter, printed on delicate-but-sturdy gampi paper, with patches of neon-hued organza, translucent vinyl, floral print baba/kokum scarves, and fringe accents. 

Dion’s most recent work, uncommon valor, expands on these themes to address solidarity with the people of Palestine. Recalling the activist expression, “they thought they could bury us, but they didn't know we were seeds,” this massive quilt depicts a rose blooming from a human skull. Rose motifs, which adorn the scarves that have come to represent solidarity and friendship between Ukrainian and Indigenous communities, are also a symbol of Palestinian resistance, often incorporated into tatreez designs; Dion’s imagery expresses his deep respect for the courage and resilience of the Palestinian people, linking their struggle for survival and self-determination to countless others; it is a call for empathy, for compassion, and for bravery.  

Vibrantly colourful, airy, and luminescent, the works in a thousand tiny prayers envision a more just, equitable, harmonious, and sustainable world, one that can only be realized collectively. 

Wally Dion, b.1976 Saskatoon Saskatchewan, is a visual artist living and working in Binghamton, New York. A member of Yellow Quill First Nation (Salteaux), Dion holds a BFA from the University of Saskatchewan and an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design. Throughout much of his career, Dion’s work has contributed to a broad conversation in the art world about identity and power and can be interpreted as part of a much larger pan-American struggle by Indigenous peoples to be recognized—culturally, economically, and politically—by settler societies.

Dion has exhibited extensively throughout Canada & the USA and has had numerous solo exhibitions includingskodenstoodis (2022), College Art Galleries, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon; Current (2019) Boise Art Museum, Color Wheel (2017) Urban Shaman Gallery, Winnipeg; Star Blankets (2011) Ottawa Art Gallery; Thunderbird Series (2010) Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba, Brandon; Red Worker (2008) Grunt Gallery, Vancouver; and Wally Dion (2008) MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina.

Dion’s work can be found the public collections of SK Arts, the Canadian Museum of Civilization, the Canada Council Art Bank, the Aboriginal Art Centre, Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, the MacKenzie Art Gallery, Remai Modern, the Portland Art Museum, and the Autry Museum of the American West, and in many private collections.