Preparatory drawing for The Examination. Graphite on acid-free paper. 254x330 mm; 10x13 inches. Signed and dated in pencil, lower right recto. 2008. A preparatory drawing for the artist's large, narrative painting The Examination.
Provenance: private collection.
Kent Monkman is an interdisciplinary Cree visual artist. A member of Fisher River Cree Nation in Treaty 5 Territory (Manitoba.)
Here, Monkman draws on centuries of medical surgery paintings, such as Robert Hinckley's The First Operation under Ether or similar surgical views by Thomas Eakins and even Rembrandt, in which male figures loom over patients being treated or operated on. But here the tables are turned. It is not an operation but an investigation of the gender of Monkman's famed protagonist, Miss Eagle Testickle, and seizing the opportunity to seduce rather than being victimized, Miss Chief refutes colonized sexuality and takes control of the scene. As the artist explains, "set inside an Indigenous earthen lodge, a dozen settler males jostle for a view during an invasive examination of Miss Chief's private anatomy. The physicians, scientists, and priests express shock, bewilderment, and enthusiasm at the revelation of Miss Chief's biological sex, their curiosity having been aroused by the allure of her ravishing genderfluid appearance. Miss Chief rises to the occasion, reveling in the melodrama unfolding around her. Unabashedly, she parts her thighs, willingly offering the excited men a generous view. While one of her warrior lovers . . . bursts into the scene to protect her from what must surely be a non-consensual act."
In the nineteenth century, medical doctors and academics such as William Alexander Hammond, Stephen Powers, and A.B. Holder subjected non-binary Indigenous people to anatomical examinations to determine their genders. Settlers also forced Indigenous people on reserves and in residential schools to comply with binary definitions of sex and gender.
Monkman's paintings can be found in private collections and institutions such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art; The Denver Art Museum; National Gallery of Canada; the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
