Art Gallery of Guelph honours late Anishnaabe artist

GUELPH – Yours in Native Spirit, an art exhibition honouring late Anishnaabe artist Richard Bedwash, opened on June 13 at the Art Gallery of Guelph.

The exhibit is part of ongoing efforts of Urban Park Guelph, an organization advocating to convert the former Guelph Correctional Centre into a national park.

Murals on walls of one of the former prison’s buildings are believed to be the work of Bedwash, from his time as an inmate there.

He was part of the correctional centre’s Native Sons program, which brought traditional teachings to the Indigenous men who were sentenced there.