The McMaster Museum of Art begins the new year with “Sanctified/Soul Art,” an exhibition of paintings, sculpture, photographs and altarpieces by Vancouver-based, Hamilton-born artist Jan Wade.

Her artwork, on view in the Museum until Feb. 18, explores formidable issues associated with multiracial heritage (African, Caribbean, Western European)new world imagery and popular culture with humour, sensitivity and eloquence.

For more than 25 years she has been producing art and has been exhibited widely across North America and overseas in London, England and at the 1995 “Africus” Johannesburg Biennale in South Africa. For the past several years she has been the official visual artist for the Lilith Fair tour.

For the McMaster exhibition, Wade has created a new work titled Home and Native Land. It is her response to the recent federal election buildup, Stockwell Day's platform in particular, and childhood associations with the singing of the national anthem. Wade thought the phrase logically referred to Canada's First Nations.

The exhibition catalogue will be designed and written by independent curator Andrew Hunter, who also grew up in Hamilton.