Winnipeg-based Indigenous painter Dee Barsy had four grandmothers; two from birth and two from her adopted family. After her paternal grandmother died last year on Mother's Day, Barsy poured her emotions on canvas to create her painting Four Grandmothers.

"That space that I was in emotionally influenced the painting," says Barsy. The result, Four Grandmothers, depicts five separate yet delicately connected shapes representing her interconnectedness between her birth and adopted family.

In this video produced by Ice River Films for CBC Arts and CBC Indigenous, Barsy reflects about how her feeling state helped to create her painting. The background of the painting is a light baby blue. Barsy muses that it could represent open space. "If I were to overthink my paintings, they would lose some of their feeling," says Barsy. "They would lose some of their authenticity, maybe."

Barsy's work is part of Winnipeg Art Gallery's largest contemporary Indigenous art exhibit, Insurgence/Resurgence. The exhibition features 29 artists from across the country with installations ranging from photography, sculptures, painting, beading, tufting, sound and performance art.