Works by Paul Shilling Dazaunggee – Sky Buffalo and Drake Williams Added to OMAH Permanent Collection
The Orillia Museum of Art & History (OMAH) is proud to announce the acquisition of two significant contemporary Indigenous artworks for its permanent collection through the support of OMAH’s Director’s Circle members, formerly known as the Sir Sam Steele Society members.
This year’s acquisitions include Walking This World Together by Paul Shilling Dazaunggee – Sky Buffalo and Remembering Our Ancestors by Drake Williams. Both works were acquired in conjunction with OMAH’s summer exhibitions The Many Faces of Paul Shilling Dazaunggee – Sky Buffalo: A Retrospective and Awaken The Spirits, currently on view through September 19, 2026.
The Director’s Circle membership program supports OMAH’s ongoing commitment to growing and caring for its permanent collection while helping ensure that important regional stories, artistic practices, and cultural voices are preserved for future generations.
“Community museums collect and preserve objects, stories, and artworks that reflect the people, histories, cultures, and experiences of their region,” said Ninette Gyorody, Executive Director of OMAH. “By growing and caring for collections, museums help ensure that local heritage and community memories are protected for future generations while also creating opportunities for education, research, reflection, and connection.”
“When thinking about OMAH’s collection, we are actively looking at groups and voices that have historically been underrepresented,” continued Gyorody. “While we have a small collection of works by Indigenous artists, many entered the collection through secondary donations. It is important that we also directly support contemporary Indigenous artists working today.”
Paul Shilling Dazaunggee – Sky Buffalo
In The Many Faces of Paul Shilling Dazaunggee – Sky Buffalo: A Retrospective, Indigenous artist Paul Shilling explores self-discovery, healing, and liberation through expressive and emotionally charged paintings informed by lived experience and spirituality.
“As an Indigenous man, Paul Shilling works to shed the image that was taught to him as a child — that he was undesirable, shameful, unworthy,” note the curators, Tanya Cunnington and Bewabon Shilling. “This continual redefinition, the questioning and searching, keeps his work alive and varied as he welcomes the ever-changing self.”
OMAH acquired Shilling’s painting Walking This World Together as part of its commitment to preserving and sharing significant contemporary Indigenous artistic voices connected to the region.
Paul Shilling attended Georgian College in Barrie, Ontario for Fine Arts in the early 1990s and is primarily self-taught, informed deeply through life experience and artistic exploration.
Drake Williams
In Awaken The Spirits, Anishinaabe artist Drake Williams merges anthropomorphic spirit figures, Woodlands-inspired linework, and vibrant colour palettes influenced by powwow regalia to create layered contemporary works rooted in ancestral storytelling traditions.
Williams’ paintings draw inspiration from pictographs, petroglyphs, birch bark scrolls, and sacred Anishinaabe sites such as the Mnjikaning Fish Weirs and the Teaching Rocks. His work reflects relationships between land, animals, spirit beings, and people while continuing and reinterpreting the visual language established by earlier generations of Indigenous artists.
OMAH acquired Williams’ painting Remembering Our Ancestors through the Director’s Circle Acquisition Fund.
Born in 1995 and a member of Rama First Nation, Williams is currently based in Toronto. His practice is informed by both traditional knowledge systems and contemporary Indigenous art movements, particularly the early Woodlands movement in Ontario.
Supporting Contemporary Indigenous Art
These acquisitions reflect OMAH’s continued commitment to building a collection that better reflects the diversity, creativity, and evolving cultural narratives of the region and Canada.
The Director’s Circle Acquisition Fund supports OMAH’s efforts to strengthen its permanent collection while making art and history accessible through exhibitions, education programs, social media, and community engagement initiatives.
Previous acquisitions supported through the membership program include works by Elizabeth Wyn Wood, Franklin Carmichael, Lindsay Montgomery, and Dillon Bickell.
For more information about the Director’s Circle or current exhibitions, please visit Director’s Circle Membership at OMAH.
