In 2023, the President’s Art Collection commissioned and purchased a work entitled “The Green Road” by Regina-based artist Melanie Monique Rose. The 64” x 40” piece was executed in needle felted wool on a vintage green blanket and was recently leant out to an exhibition at the Woodland Cultural Centre in Brantford, Ontario.

Melanie writes that “The Green Road” is “a continuation of my storytelling through blankets. I have been working for a decade using blankets to tell stories that are personal, cultural, and universal. I call this ongoing body of work The Flower People. The Flower People is a story about me, my family, my people and our connection and relationship to the land, ourselves, and each other. The name of this collection of visual storytelling is derived from the name given to the Metis: The Flower Beadwork People. I coalesce inspiration from traditional forms of Metis beadwork, embroidery and rug hooking with Ukrainian folk arts, which are seen in beadwork, embroidery, pysanky (Ukrainian Easter eggs) and dancing regalia. Through this I have created my own distinct floral designs that are new but rooted in tradition.”

Melanie Monique Rose is a Metis/Ukrainian visual artist from Saskatchewan Treaty 4 Territory, a citizen of the Metis Nation of Saskatchewan, and a long-time contributing member of Sâkêwêwak Artists’ Collective Inc. Rose’s work centres on kinship and relationships between the land, ourselves and each other. Through plants and flowers, Rose invites transmissions of ancestral knowledge and teachings while also imagining and creating a de-colonial future through the lens of Metis worldviews. In 2020, Melanie was named a CBC Future 40 for her work in arts and culture. In addition, she was one of seven artists awarded the Saskatchewan Foundation for the Arts Endowment Award to further artistic pursuits in 2021. In 2023 she was honored with the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal from His Honour the Honourable Russ Mirasty Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan for her work in Arts & Reconciliation.

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