GAVLAK, West Palm Beach, is pleased to present Niskamij – Sky World, a solo exhibition of new works by Montréal-based artist Renée Condo, marking her debut with the gallery. The presentation follows Condo’s large-scale installation recently unveiled at the 65th edition of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts’ Museum Ball and extends her exploration of interconnection through a Mi’gmaq worldview.
Known for her sweeping beadwork compositions, Renée Condo’s visual language grows from the Mi’gmaq understanding that everything in existence is bound in relationship—each action, material, and being influencing the other in a living continuum. Working with thousands of individually sanded, painted, and arranged wooden beads, she constructs rhythmic surfaces that heighten attention to color, texture, and form. Each bead functions as both a distinct element and part of a greater whole, echoing the artist’s ongoing inquiry into the balance between individual and collective harmony.
In Niskamij – Sky World, Condo looks to Mi’gmaq cosmology and the ancestral realm that exists beyond the visible world. Here, creation unfolds as a continual process of becoming—cyclical, subject to renewals and realignments, and moving through thresholds that link the material and the spiritual. In Ga'qanei – Entranceway (2025), Condo explores the dialogue between self and source through mirrored imagery of the sun. Fields of color and form gather and disperse in quiet motion, while Mntu motifs occupy the spaces between—evoking the unseen forces that shape existence. While informed by her interest in physics and metaphysics, this body of work ultimately centers Indigenous understandings of time, energy, and relation.
Condo’s practice, while formally rigorous, is deeply sensorial. Guided by the Mi’gmaq principle of Heart Knowledge—which privileges feeling over intellect—she approaches each bead with intentional care, infusing the work with what she calls “energetic presence.” Viewers often describe the works as radiant or alive, their surfaces vibrating with quiet intensity. For Condo, this resonance embodies an exchange of energy between maker and viewer, material and meaning.
Throughout Niskamij – Sky World, Condo’s compositions invite contemplation of scale, from the subatomic to the celestial. The works evoke both the intimacy of touch and the vastness of space, offering a meditation on the interconnection of all existence. By merging Indigenous philosophy with the formal language of abstraction, Condo proposes a worldview where perception, matter, and spirit coexist in a state of presence and relation.
About the Artist
Renée Condo (b. 1979, Gesgapegiag, QC; lives and works in Tiohtià:ke, Montréal, QC) holds a BFA in Studio Arts and an MFA in Sculpture from Concordia University. Condo’s solo exhibitions include One who shatters particles, one who smells flowers, Blouin Division, Montreal, QC (2025); Shifting Perspectives, Warren G. Flowers Gallery, Montreal, QC (2023); Sisip-Sipu, Knowing Differently, Contemporary Native Art Biennial (BACA), Galerie Laroche/Joncas, Montreal, Que (2022); Heart Knowledge – Pemitgl, Galerie Laroche/Joncas, Montreal, QC (2021). Her work has been included in group exhibitions including a duo exhibition, A Quiet Truth, at Night Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2024); Abtrus, Galerie Laroche/Joncas, Montreal, QC (2021); Honoring Kinship, BACA (Contemporary Native Art Biennial), Art Mûr, Montreal, QC (2020) among others. As well as various art fairs including Dallas Art Fair, Galerie Blouin Division, Dallas, TX (2025); Art Basel Miami Beach, Gavlak Gallery, Miami, FL (2024); The Armory Show, Galerie Blouin Division, New York, NY (2023); Art Toronto, Toronto, ONT (2021); Miami Untitled, Miami, FL (2024); Plural, Galerie Blouin Division, Montreal, QC (2025, 2024); Artgenéve, Geneva, Switzerland. Condo’s work can also be found in numerous public and private collections including Canada Goose, Montreal, QC and Las Vegas, NV; Citizens Bank, Palm Beach, FL; Google, Toronto, ON; LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, Paris, France; McCarthy Tétrault, Toronto, ON; the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, QC; RBC Bank, Toronto, ON; Scotia Bank, Toronto, ON; Telus, Toronto, ON; and TD Bank, Toronto, ON. Including public artworks in Laval and Gesgapegiag, QC.
She is currently a laureate of Fonderie Darling’s long-term residency program. Renée Condo is represented by GAVLAK in Palm Beach, FL and Blouin Division | Montreal, Canada.