Canadian Pop Modernism – A Visual Language

Canadian artist Brandy Saturley has developed a distinctive style she calls Canadian Pop Modernism, a visual language that bridges Pop Art’s bold immediacy with Modernism’s formal rigor and introspection. Her paintings reinterpret national symbols, landscapes, and cultural icons through a contemporary lens, exploring what it means to see Canada anew.

Defining Canadian Pop Modernism – by Brandy Saturley

Canadian Pop Modernism is born from the collision of two worlds: the bright accessibility of Pop Art and the quiet depth of Modernist inquiry. My work draws on the familiar; the maple leaf, the hockey mask, the red toque, the iconic landscapes, and reframes these icons through a lens of contemplation and design.

While Pop Art traditionally celebrates consumer culture, my approach shifts the focus toward cultural consciousness. I am interested not in products as much recently, but in symbols – those uniquely Canadian emblems that tell us who we are, and who we imagine ourselves to be. This synthesis results in paintings that are visually direct yet conceptually layered, works that invite both immediate recognition and sustained reflection.

Between Alex Colville and Michael Snow

The lineage of my work exists in conversation with artists who have sought to define a Canadian visual identity. Alex Colville’s disciplined realism and quiet tension inform my approach to composition and perspective. Like Colville, I aim to evoke stillness charged with narrative – a moment that feels both timeless and psychological.

Conversely, Michael Snow’s conceptual play and experimentation with perception resonate with the more analytical side of my practice. His exploration of image, repetition, and national context opened doors for a generation of artists to question representation itself. Between these poles, the precise and the playful, the formal and the conceptual, Canadian Pop Modernism emerges as a bridge: grounded in observation, yet open to irony, abstraction, and narrative reinvention.

A Contemporary Language of Symbols

In my paintings, Canadian iconography becomes a form of language – one that blends nostalgia with new meaning. The poppy, plaid, mountain silhouette, or hockey mask each serve as visual words in a sentence that speaks of place, memory, and belonging.

Colour and form play equal roles. The saturated reds and blues recall both flag and advertising; the crisp edges echo screen printing and digital media; yet the painterly surface restores the tactile and human. This duality, precision and emotion, surface and soul, defines my visual grammar.

Reframing Identity Through Contemporary Eyes

Canadian Pop Modernism is not about branding a nation, but about questioning how identity is constructed and perceived. It asks:
What happens when we hold a mirror to our collective imagery?
Can a painting of a plaid shirt say as much about national character as a landscape?
How do symbols change when viewed through the eyes of a woman artist traveling across this vast country?

These are the questions that drive my work. Each painting becomes a dialogue between the personal and the public, the past and the present – a way to document the evolving psyche of a country.

An Evolving Movement

As my practice continues to grow, Canadian Pop Modernism remains both a personal philosophy and an open invitation, a way of seeing that celebrates diversity within unity. It recognizes that Canadian art is not one voice or vision, but a chorus of perspectives layered across geography and time. Through this lens, I aim to create work that feels familiar yet new, rooted yet forward-looking, paintings that invite viewers to see Canada not as a fixed image, but as an idea constantly being rewritten.

See paintings that cover the last two decades of Brandy Saturley’s oeuvre here.