Matthew Provost Naatsikapamatoosin (Two Smudge): Re-counting Coup: Fazakas Gallery, Vancouver BC

Opening reception

Thursday May 14, 6 - 8 pm

659 East Hastings Street

Fazakas Gallery is pleased to present Re-counting Coup, the first solo exhibition in British Columbia by Matthew Provost Naatsikapamatoosin (Two Smudge), an artist from the Piikani and Kainai Nations (Southern Alberta), part of the Siksikaitsitapi (Blackfoot Confederacy). 

Two Smudge’s practice explores how Siksikaitsitapi knowledge systems persist and adapt within contemporary contexts. Working across painting, material interventions, installation, and hanging mobile sculpture, he engages histories of mark-making, land, and value to consider how cultural knowledge is carried forward.

The exhibition’s title draws on the Blackfoot practice of counting coup, a Plains Indigenous tradition in which warriors demonstrated bravery through close physical proximity to an opponent—touching rather than killing. Emphasizing risk, precision, and restraint, the act held deep social and cultural significance.

In Re-counting Coup, Two Smudge reinterprets this gesture through his materials and process. Painting over maps and financial documents such as cheques—tools historically tied to colonial systems of land and economy—he disrupts their authority without fully erasing them. These works function as acts of “re-counting,” where layered marks assert presence and challenge imposed structures.

This approach connects to earlier visual traditions, including winter counts—pictorial records used by Plains Indigenous communities to mark significant events—and the later development of ledger art in the 19th century. While Ledger Art often emphasizes figuration and narrative, Two Smudge departs from these conventions. His compositions draw from the painted visual language of Niitoyis (lodges), where surface, structure, and meaning are intertwined. While the works may appear abstract, they are built through a Blackfoot visual vocabulary—circles, lines, and geometric forms that reference stars, celestial systems, and relationships to land.

Niitoyis remains central to the work. Beyond a formal reference, the lodge embodies teachings related to home, land, and community. Drawn from lived experience in Piikani Nation, these forms are rearticulated across each surface, creating spatial systems that resist the fixed boundaries of colonial cartography.

Across the exhibition, layers of information remain visible. Fragments of maps persist beneath painted fields, their borders disrupted but legible. This coexistence reflects an ongoing tension between imposed territorial frameworks and Siksikaitsitapi understandings of land as relational and lived.

Re-counting Coup considers what it means to act with courage today. Here, bravery is expressed through continuation—through the sustained act of making, learning, and transmitting knowledge. The work affirms that Siksikaitsitapi ways of knowing are not static, but continuously evolving and carried forward.

Matthew Provost Naatsikapamatoosin (Two Smudge) (b. 1995, Fort Macloed, AB; Piikani) is a designer, printmaker, beader, and visual artist from the Piikani Nation within the Blackfoot Confederacy. Matthew is an emerging designer that focuses on creating garments that are thoughtfully created to tell stories through design. Many of his designs incorporate notions of Siksikaitsitapi influence through elements of Niitoyis (Lodges). For him this creates a sense of home in his work as well the ability to share Siksikaitsitapi ways of knowing.

As a visual artist his practice is broad and continues to grow, he has incorporated forms of block printing into ledger art that has helped him learn about specific design elements of the Blackfoot People. Matthew has been designing and creating professionally since 2016. Matthew debuted as a designer in the 2023 Vancouver Indigenous Fashion Week, and in 2024 was invited down to share his collection in Santa Fe in a collective show with 4KINSHIP. Matthew has created commissioned pieces for Crack Gallery (Vancouver, BC), Beadwork for Better Gift Shop™ (Toronto, ON) and Balansa Sound Shop (Busan, South Korea).

Matthew currently practices on the territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish), Sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh).