The name ROSEMARY blends the first names of Co-Directors Suzanne’s and Jaimie’s grandmothers: Rose Morrissette (née Richard), and Dr. Elder Mary Courchene. The gallery is named to recognize the strength and vision of matriarchal leadership in Indigenous communities.

It is both a nod to the gifts of their family and Elders while recognizing both Rose and Mary as emblematic of an Indigenous leadership that forms the fabric of our communities.

rosemary team

  • Jaimie Isaac

    Co-Director

    Jaimie Isaac is a curator and interdisciplinary artist,  Anishinaabe member of Sagkeeng First Nation from from her matriarchal side and is of mixed European British heritage on her patriarchal side. 

    Isaac is dedicated to amplifying voices and creative colllectivism, making space for underrepresented womxn, IBPOC, LGBTQ2S+ voices. She is currently working on several projects with galleries and organizations in an advising capacity, and on independent curatorial and artistic projects. Isaac has worked to decolonize art and cultural institutions in leadership positions and has mentored emerging curators in the field.


    She was the Chief Curator at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria from 2021-2023, where she curated several shows some notably Adorned and the Governor General Awards in the Visual and Media Arts 2021 and Symbiosis (co-curated).  She served as the Curator of Contemporary and Indigenous Arts at the Winnipeg Art Gallery for six years.  Exhibitions curated at the Winnipeg Art Gallery were Nahdohbii: To Draw Water (an international touring co-curated Triennial), Born In Power, subsist (co-curated), ᐃ (co- curated), Behind Closed Doors, organic, Insurgence Resurgence (co-curated) and Vernon Ah Kee: cantchant, Boarder X (National tour), We Are On Treaty Land, and Quiyuktchigaewin; Making Good, and in her tenure there managed touring shows, initiated many dynamic and sustained partnerships and programming.


     Isaac holds a degree in Art History From University of Winnipeg and a Masters of Arts from the University of British Columbia focused on decolonizing gallery/ museum practices. 

    Artistically, Isaac co-founded The Ephemerals Collective, which was long-listed for the 2017 and 2019 Sobey Art Award. Collectively and independently, she has exhibited and presented work internationally. Jaimie collaborated with an artistic teams on public art sculptures at the Forks called Nimama at South Point path: Niizhoziibean and Cyclical Motion: Indigenous Art & Placemaking at the University of Manitoba. She designed a solo public art work; 8th and Final Fire at the Forks, Winnipeg, 2021 and solo exhibition, Brings to Light at the 1co3, 2022, and a featured artist with the 2023 and 2024 Nuit Blanche Festival in Winnipeg. 

    Isaac has lectured internationally,enjoyed curatorial research trips and residencies in Norway, Finland, Italy, New Zealand, Chicago, and New York. With published work, Isaac has contributed to scholarly collections of writing within the textbooks 

    Waves of Hope: Indigeneity, Race, and Gender in the Surfing Lineup, The Routledge Companion to Indigenous Art Histories in the United States and Canada, the Introduction to Determinants of First Nations, Iniut and Metis Peoples' Health in Canada: Chapter 13 Taking Care: Indigenous Peoples' Art, Resurgence and Wellness, The Land We Are Now: Writers and Artists Unsettle the Politics of Reconciliation, West Coast Line 74 and Public 54: Indigenous Art: New Media and the Digital Journal. Jaimie has contributed articles and features for Art + Wonder, C Magazine, Bordercrossings, and essays for exhibition catalogues; Insurgence Resurgence, Boarder X, Close Encounters: The Next 500 Years, and unsacred.

    In community, Jaimie was co-faculty for the Wood Land School at Plug In Summer Institute in 2016. She is a Curatorial Advisor for the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, currently serves on the Advisory Committee for the Manitoba Museum and is on the board of directors for Bordercrossings Magazine and Trustee for the Sobey Art Foundation and Scholar in Residence for the 7 Oaks School Division. Jaimie has been awarded grants from Canada Council, and Manitoba art councils and been a jury on several awards. She is an honouree for Leaders of Tomorrow from the Manitoba Museum 50th Tribute Awards 2020, CBC Future 40 Finalist and the Canadian Museums Association recipient for an outstanding achievement award in exhibitions category with the Boarder X exhibition, 2021.

  • Suzanne Morrissette

    Co-Director

    Suzanne Morrissette, PhD (she/her) is a Red River Métis artist, curator, and scholar who is currently based out of Toronto. She is currently Assistant Professor at OCAD University where she teaches in the Indigenous Visual Culture BFA program, and in the Criticism and Curatorial Practices MFA program. As an arts-based researcher Suzanne’s interests include: reciprocal and gift economies, equity and diversity, as well as culturally informed governance models in the arts. As an artist she works across media to produce artworks that reflect upon spirituality, the unknowable, and motherhood. She holds an MFA in Criticism and Curatorial Practices from OCAD University and a PhD in Social and Political Thought from York University.

    Recent artistic projects include: to notice, a 150’ installation of light and shadow for Nuit Blanche Etobicoke, and an audio-visual commission by imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival called Where they begin I continue. Her solo exhibition What does good work look like? opened at Gallery 44 (Toronto) in 2022 and travelled to C’CAP (Winnipeg) in 2023. In 2025 she will open two solo exhibitions: One at ASpace Gallery, and another at the Durham Art Gallery. Recent curatorial projects include: How can I know you? a group show about the agency of land-based material at the Art Gallery of Burlington, and Otakosik Tapwa’win, an interactive online oral history project with Indigenous artists in Winnipeg from the 70s, 80s, and 90s. She has published with cmagazine. Her forthcoming book But have we arrived? explores the liberalism’s failed promises to Indigenous artists, and is contracted to ARP Books with a planned for release in late 2025.

    Morrissette’s father’s parents were Michif- and Cree-speaking Metis with family histories tied to the Interlake and Red River regions and Scrip in the area now known as Manitoba. Her mother’s parents came from Canadian-born farming families descended from United Empire loyalists and Mennonites from Russia. Morrissette was born and raised in Winnipeg and is a citizen of the Manitoba Metis Federation.

  • Dylan Stokes

    Dylan Stokes is Anishinaabe/English/Scottish and a member of Sagkeeng First Nation. They were born and raised in Winnipeg on Treaty 1 Territory and continue to live and work there.  They are a student, arts administrator, and aspiring curator currently studying Art History at the University of Winnipeg. Their interests lie in the decolonization and Indigenization of gallery spaces on Turtle Island, and the resistance embodied in contemporary art practice by queer, racialized, Indigenous and otherwise marginalized artists.

  • Jhamela Abainza

    Hello! I’m Jhamela Abainza (she/her). Originally from the Philippines, I have spent the majority of my life in the vibrant city of Winnipeg. Currently, I’m completing my Honours BA in Art History at the University of Winnipeg, with aspirations to pursue a Master’s in Curatorial Studies. Art and gallery spaces have always been my sanctuary, igniting my passion for history and the arts. In addition to my academic pursuits, I embrace every opportunity to create. While I have formal training in charcoal and graphite figure drawing, my true love lies in crafting watercolour and acrylic portraits.