Krystle Coughlin Silverfox

Krystle Coughlin Silverfox is a Selkirk First Nation visual artist residing in New Westminster, BC. She holds a BFA in Visual art and a BA in Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice from the University of British Columbia and a MFA from Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts. Coughlin Silverfox’s work combines Northwest Coast First Nations design and craft with themes of identity, responding to local landscapes and to the artist’s own location as an urban Indigenous woman. Her photographs are shot in the same urban settings as Jeff Wall’s, but the focus is shifted away from any human actors. Inspired by First Nations beading practices used to record knowledge of landscapes, Coughlin Silverfox uses broken threads and beads to stand in for people – a reference to missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, as well as the ongoing efforts to recover and preserve Indigenous knowledge. The photos examine intersections of identity and belonging; concepts which are integral to the artist’s own experiences as a First Nations artist living and working on unceded Coast Salish territories.