Tom Wilson Tehohàhake is a multidisciplinary artist working as a painter, writer, and musician who has received acclaim in all three of his artistic vocations. In 2015, Wilson had a life-changing encounter with a stranger that changed the course of his life and career. It was revealed to him that he was adopted and that his birth mother was Mohawk from the Kahnawake reserve outside of Montreal. Since this discovery, Wilson has used painting and writing to reconnect with his identity and explore themes of resilience and survival, developing his own visual language. In 2017, he released his bestselling autobiography, Beautiful Scars. Excerpts from his writings often appear in his paintings.
Wilson’s paintings often include birds, buffalo and a striking figure with blue eyes. It is important to note that Wilson was painting in this style before the revelation of his Mohawk heritage. Wilson attributes these motifs to recurring childhood dreams and a term often used by his ancestors, “blood memory.” Many of Wilson’s vibrantly coloured works represent the duality of his two lives: his upbringing and his life after the discovery of his Indigenous roots.
Based in Hamilton, Ontario, Tom Wilson’s first museum exhibition was held in 2018 at the Art Gallery of Burlington and toured to the Grimsby Public Art Gallery in 2020. In 2025, his exhibition, Tehohàhake - The Art of Tom Wilson, opened at the Midland Cultural Centre. In 2023, Wilson was appointed as a Member of the Order of Canada in recognition of his multifaceted contributions to the arts, as well as for his advocacy of Indigenous communities in Canada.