Lee Claremont

Lee Claremont’s paintings express an eclectic perception of the land, nature, people, and spirituality. Her women are powerful, mature, and free, and are themselves landscapes, sometimes undetectable from Mother Earth. Catapulting into modernity she is her work: an artist first, indigenous, strong, and uninhibited. Her voice will be significant to the future historical record.
-Gayle E. Linman, Independent Curator

Lee is Mohawk and Irish and was born in Woodstock, Ontario in the territory of the Grand River Six Nations Ontario. She has a BFA (Honours) from the University of British Columbia and now resides in the beautiful Okanagan Valley in BC.
Lee Claremont has been a successful contemporary Mohawk Indigenous artist for over 40 years. Her use of colour and composition is outstanding. Lee believes that art can be a vehicle to illustrate cultural and spiritual beliefs. Lee considers herself a “late bloomer” and after raising four daughters she completed her Fine Arts Degree at UBC. Lee is involved in numerous projects and workshops that educate and celebrate Indigenous culture. Her journey has had many twists and turns along the way but she has always found refuge in her art making.
Lee Claremont is more than an Indigenous artist. She is a visual storyteller who has an intimate understanding of the language that colour speaks.
Her explosions of colour burst into the world of painting, intertwining texture, pattern and life through a uniquely Indigenous worldview. She creates for us a world on canvas that bridges the past with the contemporary, bringing healing through the beautiful balance of playfulness, truth-telling and courage. While her Mohawk ancestry is strongly evident in her work it never
supersedes her universality. She shares her journey with us; vignettes of primal, spiritual, feminine strength, all exuding her confidence as a woman and an artist.
Lee’s artwork can be found across Canada and worldwide including a traveling exhibition of female artists globally that started in China at the 5th United Nations Conference on Women and Children. Lee’s passion for her art can be found on Youtube where she shares her work in a documentary produced by Earth Magic Media and she has also participated in a TED talk sharing the Mohawk Creation Story. Lee’s images can also be found on book covers, art cards, event posters, CD covers, illustrations and in a line of fabric.