All That Glitters is Tomatoes, photomontage, 15.5 x 20 inches, 2025.

I often work with themes of Indigenousness and explore mythology surrounding Indigenous identities. All That Glitters is Tomatoes follows a similar line of questioning but instead of my Indigenous identity it questions the settlers who came to North America and, through colonial expansion, created Métis communities across Canada. This work borrows aesthetics from Rococo, the prevailing style in France during the 18th century, the same time that my ancestors left for what they called “La Nouvelle France”. Rococo’s opulence prompts the question: if life was so abundant in France, why leave?

Coming from an underprivileged background, I’ve learned that true belonging demands resources, many of which are often out of reach. In these cases, approximation becomes a means of survival. It can be necessary to make do with what you’ve got, rather than go without. After all, the knock-off celebrity perfumes smell almost as good. All That Glitters is Tomatoes is built on such approximations.

The landscape suggests a romantic view, yet it's trompe l’oeil, pasted in from another image. The frame appears ornate and curved, evoking the lavishness of Rococo design but instead of gold, it's constructed from a grocery store flyer advertising tomatoes. Europeans once dismissed tomatoes as poisonous, overlooking the knowledge of Mesoamericans who had cultivated them for centuries. Only later did Europeans realize that the real culprit was their own pewter plates, whose lead leached under tomato acidity. The tomato stands in as a symbol for overlooked and dismissed Indigenous knowledge.

Like Rococo, at first glance the work seems vapid, but upon closer inspection it can reveal unexpected layers of meaning.