Tonya Makletzoff

Region: 
North Slave
Community: 
Yellowknife
Artist Bio: 

Tonya recalls an early interest in art, being raised by a painter and a cinematography artist. A second-generation immigrant of Irish, Eastern European roots on her mother’s side, she was heavily influenced by her grandmother’s life’s work to end segregation in Chicago. A recent DNA assessment revealed her father’s ancestry originated in the UK and Portugal and she continues to seek her roots.

Her first years of life were spent in Toronto, Ontario. After being transplanted to the North at age 7, her life took on a new meaning. She learned about human rights and cultural survival from the Dene, Metis and Inuit perspectives of the Northwest Territories during the 70s and 80’s. She was custom adopted by her Gwichin stepfather Lawrence Norbert and married into a Dehcho Dene family in the 90’s, where she spent many wonderful years going out on the land and running youth and family on-the-land programs. Inspired by the people who have lived as one with the land for countless generations, her artistic journey explored the themes of interconnectedness and the offerings of a regenerative reciprocal society. Her early works documented the traditional Dene way of life on the land with Acrylic on canvas. Methods used were painterly realistic style using acrylics on canvas, hide, and wood. More recently she has been branching into film production and at times experiments with multi-media collage.

Art has always been her way to share an appreciation for and celebrate, preserve, and protect the unique way of life of the north. An undercurrent in her work is the conflict between dominant western humans’ views of the earth as a commodity vs. Indigenous ideology of earth as a sacred being. The paintings are meant to be a testament to the resilience of a northern subarctic Canadian society where parts of the economy are still based on Indigenous values of reciprocity between the human and the natural world despite the impacts of colonization. The world’s global economic systems continue to endanger this system in the quest for endless economic growth.

As we wake up to the fact that climate change is impacting these human rights to exist in this way in a cold climate, we must seek to find solutions and adapt together. Part of that resilience is to rekindle a balanced relationship with the earth, within us and with each other. Tonya works in the Department of Environment and Climate Change with GNWT, mainly supporting the collective efforts at protecting biodiversity and supporting building resilience to climate change with Indigenous governments and Indigenous organizations. Currently a Master of Arts Student, in Environmental Practice, at Royal Roads University, she is interested in researching ways to transition to a regenerative economic system and producing documentary films on these themes.

Tonya is the co-founder and served as president and on the board of the Open Sky Creative Society in Fort Simpson, and served for seven years on the NWT Arts Council. She has attended various art shows and exhibitions throughout the Northwest Territories and Canada, such as the Great Northern Arts Festival in Inuvik. When she is not creating, working, or taking classes, she can be found parenting, skiing, kayaking, yogying, or enjoying the great outdoors and the northern arts and cultural scene.

Last Updated: June 7, 2023

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