photo: mnemonics for the commons, ee portal traces their shared ancestry to Ireland during an artist residency at the Burren College of Art.

Bio

Elyse Portal is a settler of Ukrainian, Baltic, Mennonite, German, Scandinavian and Irish heritage. She is foraging, creating and living on the traditional lands of the Atikameksheng Anishnawbek and Wahnapitae First Nation C.K.A. Sudbury, Ontario. Her work revolves around climate crisis endurance exercises that include reciprocal pigment foraging practices, climate narratives, installations, social-engagements, video, performance, as well as ecological material and bioremedial art research.

climate crisis endurance exercises respond to climate and land-use changes, as well as biodiversity loss by researching ecological materials, including those found by artists like John Sabraw, who had the curiosity to ask: does this contaminated red river, from Acid Mining Drainage, hold pigments that could be non-toxic? Sabraw has gone on to answer that question, generating non-toxic reclaimed pigments sold through Gamblin. His actions are gaining enthusiasm and funding across sectors so he can scale his project to both gather the pigments and remediate the industrially contaminated watershed in Truetown, Ohio.

With artists and curators Tilke Elkins (of the Wild Pigment Project) and Heidi Gustafson (author of Book of Earth), Elyse has been expanding her knowledge of ochres, respectful foraging, and paint making.

Upcoming projects to be presented at Manidoo Bineshii Dreams (MBD) community arts space on Atikameksheng Anishnawbek First Nation, include: Wind’s Damp Song for the Soil and Other Contemplations on Ecological Justice (an exhibition co-curated with Manidoo Bineshiinh supporting 4 Northern Ontario BIPOC and Francophone artists); and Poetic Senses Regreening Skins within Mass Metal Extraction for Planetary Aims (an interarts exhibition by the collaborative, ee portal (Elyse & Emilio Portal). Both projects are funded by the Ontario Arts Council (2024).

Her solo, collaborative and curatorial work (funded by the Canada and Ontario arts councils) has been shown nationally and internationally including at the Durham Art Gallery (2023); Debaser, Ottawa (2022); ON THE EDGE Fringe Festival, North Bay (2022); Galerie du Nouvel-Ontario, Sudbury (2022); Art Gallery of Sudbury (2022); Creative People Leading Climate Action, Augusta Savage Gallery, University of Massachusetts Amherst (2021); Pigments Revealed Symposium (2021); Ecart Art Actuel, Rouyn-Noranda, QC (2020); Sudbury 2050 International Design Competition (2020); Burren College of Art, Ireland (2019); claybank (Eco|Femin|Isms, The White House Studio Project (2018); 7a*11D (2017); Decelerated Dialogues, York University (2017); WKP Kennedy Gallery, North Bay (2017); G Amani’s Garden Skool, SAVAC, Toronto (2016); Reconstructing Resilience Symposium, OCADU (2016); (re)member of water, Galerie du Nouvel-Ontario, Sudbury (2015); Journey into Fantasy, McMichael Canadian Art Collection (2015); Materia medica, University of Toronto Art Centre, Toronto (2014); Whippersnapper Gallery, Toronto (2014); Ministry of Casual Living (2011), greenw**sh, Open Space Arts Society, Victoria (2011).

Elyse has a BFA (University of Victoria) and Master’s degree in Visual Studies (University of Toronto). 

Elyse is a member of Pigments Revealed International, the ECOART NETWORK, and SCALE/leSAUT - Sectoral Climate Arts Leadership for the Emergency, a network of networks, emerging in Canada.

More on Location

I am living today on the traditional lands of the Atikameksheng Anishnawbek and Wahnapitae First Nation. I am grateful, as a descendant of settlers, for Indigenous peoples’ ways of being and seeing, including diverse approaches to attentiveness, reciprocity, and place-based care. As an artist focused on decolonization, I am learning more about the Robinson-Huron Treaty of 1850 that was signed in this territory. Indigenous approaches to land that established thriving ecosystems for millennia were disrupted by colonization, and need to be reconciled, especially in the face of the climate crisis. My ancestors would not have had farmlands or livelihoods, as they did, without stolen lands, and those stolen lands were transformed from biodiverse social spaces into properties. I am grateful to my mother, Gale Parchoma, who was committed to reconciliation and solidarity with Indigenous peoples throughout her lifetime, teaching practice, friendships, stories and poetry. With my heart open, I welcome learning and connection to this land: elements, plants, animals, elders, peoples, histories, stories. Miigwech.

selected Publications + reviews + associated press

(See the Publication section for some of Elyse Portal’s writing.)

•   Laura Demers, Galerie du Nouvel-Ontario, “Against All Odds,” curatorial essay (2022): https://gn-o.org/en/contre-vents-et-marees/

•   Yuma Hester, Bawaadan Collective, “Video Feedback Episode 4 / EE PORTAL,” interview (2022): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjipGbgLl5U

•   Elyse Portal, Sudbury.com, Soapbox, “Laurentian’s greenspace must be protected,” (May 17, 2022): https://www.sudbury.com/columns/the-soapbox/the-soapbox-laurentians-greenspace-must-be-protected-5376446

•   Sarah McMillian, CBC Up North, “Against All Odds and Ecology,” (June, 2022): http://elyseportal.com/#/against-all-odds/

•   Maude Johnson, Esse Magazine, “distance between us, L’Ecart, Rouyn-Noranda,” 101 – New Materialisms (winter 2021): https://esse.ca/en/distance-between-us-lecart-rouyn-noranda

•   CBC News, “Local design team pitches ‘healing’ plan as part of Sudbury 2050 Urban Design Ideas Competition,” (November, 14, 2020): https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/sudbury-2050-urban-design-competition-finalists-mashkikike-1.5798443

•   A l’est de vos empires (art podcast, based in Quebec City, discussion of “distance between us”), L'art sur le web - Le net art, la ruée vers le numérique et les expositions virtuelles (November, 2020, starts at 47 min 25 sec): https://soundcloud.com/a-lest-de-vos-empires/lart-sur-le-web-le-net-art-la-ruee-vers-le-numerique-et-les-expositions-virtuelles

•   Golboo Amani, review of Handmade fire, in “The wisps of smoke fill my nostrils. I inhale deeply and gently,” the lie of the land  (July 13, 2016); https://thelieofthelandblog.wordpress.com/2016/07/13/the-wisps-of-smoke-fill-my-nostrils-i-inhale-deeply-and-gently/

•   Lisa Gregoire, “Legendary Inuit artist’s work comes to life in gallery exhibit,” Nunatsiaq News (June 26, 2015);https://nunatsiaq.com/stories/article/65674legendary_inuit_artists_works_come_to_life_in_gallery_exhibit/

•   “Portals,” in Emergency Index: an annual document of performance practice, vol. 3, ed. Yelena Gluzman (Brooklyn: Ugly Duckling Presse, 2014) 164-165

•   Julia Abraham, review of Materia medica, in Master of Visual Studies Programme, University of Toronto (2014): 24-27.

•   Brenda Petays, review of urbeing, in “her skirts touch the ground,” lumbr  (June 29, 2012): https://lumbr.wordpress.com/2012/06/29/her-skirts-touch-the-ground

•   Open Space Arts Society, “Greenw**sh,” curatorial interview (2011): https://youtu.be/4q4IEJCsYsg