Manuel Axel Strain is an interdisciplinary artist of Coast Salish, Secwepemc, and Okanagan descent. He works with painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, and video installations. His practice confronts the legacies of colonialism that have been left upon the identities of the First Nations people of Canada. Manuel is mainly concerned with post-colonial notions of hybridity, assimilation, and resistance. Through a euro-centric approach to image making he simultaneously accepts these legacies and rejects them. He intends to move beyond the binary opposition of the colonizer and the colonized to establish new ontologies for the First Nations identity.

Through the use of self portraiture in Decolonization: Transcendence of an Indigenous Identity, Manuel intends to redefine his indigeneity and break the cycle of inaccurate generalizations. It is through a self-reflective practice that Manuel came to identify his oppression and resist these stereotypes. This exhibition is an opportunity for indigenous people to begin to decolonize themselves.