“Time is so precious. I’m under constant pressure from within. Like a volcano, grumbling and rumbling continually…I don’t close my eyes except when I sleep, and then there are dreams, color again.”
- Arthur Shilling, The Ojibway Dream

Arthur Shilling was born on the Chippewas of Rama First Nation Reserve near Orillia, Ontario into an Ojibway family. His work portrayed the Ojibway people and their inner life of courage, dignity and beauty, in spite of their difficulties.

Shilling received a scholarship from the Indian Affairs Department to study at the Ontario College of Art in Toronto, then he chose to self-teach. In his paintings, he depicted the life of his family and his people using an expressionist style with bold strokes of colour. A show at the Wells Gallery in Ottawa brought national recognition for his work, which became sought after.

As a child he suffered four attacks of rheumatic fever, which damaged his heart. While living in Toronto, he still suffered from heart problems, and in 1979 he decided to return to the peace of nature in the place of his birth in the Rama First Nation. In the mid-1970s, he went to Toronto for heart surgery, which was successful. He returned home, and after recuperating, he constructed a contemporary tepee studio and a home that he designed himself. His art at this time reflected the spiritual rebirth he found on the Rama Reserve; his works were passionate, using muscular brushwork and bright, radiant colour. After over-extending himself teaching children in the Peace River district of Northern Alberta, and supervising construction on his structures on the Rama Reserve, he relapsed and died at the age of 44.

The artist’s life was documented in the 1978 NFB film The Beauty of my People: The Life and Work of Arthur Shilling (1974). Shilling produced a book – The Ojibway Dream, a collection of 21 paintings that included poetic reflections on his inner life and his art. His works are in the collections of the Department of Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada, the National Museum of Man, McMichael Canadian Art Collection and the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian.