Abigail Permell | Hidden Northern Figures

Hidden Northern Figures is a series of paintings that places black bodies, specifically the black female, as an essential part of the Canadian landscape. The series will contain 3 (36”width x48” height) oil paintings. These figures function as integral aspects that helped and are helping shape Canada and will not be overlooked the way that history and current society continues to dismiss these stories and the history of a people. Documenting contemporary black bodies as a “robust northern race pitting themselves against the harshness of climate” in a celebratory and necessary representation to emphasize our presence here in the Canadian landscape, ultimately, providing future generations with visual evidence of their ancestry that has not been disguised, hidden or neglected in the way that I have experienced it when trying to uncover my own history and the histories of my people.