Looking Back at Art Exhibitions in Alberta – Painting Canada

I have presented several solo art exhibitions in Alberta over the past fifteen years. While my home and studio are based on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, I have developed a strong and loyal following in Alberta. Traveling coast to coast to coast across Canada deeply informs my practice, and exhibiting nationally allows me to share this work with Canadians while introducing it to new audiences and collectors.

The first time I introduced my work to Alberta audiences was in late 2013, with a solo exhibition titled #ICONICCANUCK. The exhibition marked my first solo presentation and featured paintings largely inspired by Canada’s hockey culture. #ICONICCANUCK emerged as a pseudonym through my engagement with Canadian popular culture and my interactions on social media, particularly Twitter at the time.

The work carried layered stories of hockey culture and its influence on the Canadian psyche. The hashtag came to define a genre within my practice, often referred to as “Pop Canadianisms,” exploring Canadian identity, culture, and history through a contemporary, accessible, and often humorous lens. A small companion book was published alongside the exhibition, featuring 15 paintings from the show.

#ICONICCANUCK was presented at the CARFAC Alberta Gallery in the Harcourt House Arts building in Edmonton, Alberta.

The work continued to grow and evolve, and in 2016 I set out on the road once again to immerse myself in Canadian culture, landscapes, and art communities across the country. That year took me north to Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories, where I finally reached the edge of the Arctic Circle and gathered scenes and stories from this remote and strikingly beautiful region of Canada.

From there, my travels continued through Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa. In each city, I spent time visiting local galleries, sharing meals with artists, and engaging with the communities I was exploring. These encounters became an essential part of my research and process.

2016 was a pivotal building year, laying the groundwork for a series of solo exhibitions in 2017 and solidifying the national scope of my practice.

Entering 2017, the year began with a solo exhibition in Edmonton. Titled Canadianisms: A Half Decade Painting Canada, the exhibition opened in January at Gallery@501 at Strathcona County in Sherwood Park. Building on the momentum of my 2013 exhibition, the show featured over 30 paintings, along with my hand-painted art crates displayed in the gallery’s front window. A small companion book was published to accompany the exhibition.

The exhibition included select works from #ICONICCANUCK and traced a clear progression into my most recent paintings, incorporating collage alongside figurative landscapes and still lifes. While hockey remained a recurring theme, the exhibition broadened its focus to include visual narratives shaped by my travels across Canada.

From the Edmonton area, the work travelled south to the Calgary region, where my next solo exhibition opened in July at the Okotoks Art Gallery. This presentation was a more intimate iteration of the Sherwood Park exhibition, featuring fewer than 20 paintings, with my hand-painted art crates installed at the centre of the gallery space.

The exhibition continued as a five-year retrospective of work created under #ICONICCANUCK, bringing together select portraits and figurative works reflecting Canadian identity, alongside new paintings produced following the January exhibition.

Following 2017, I continued painting stories of Canada, with my focus shifting increasingly toward landscapes and rural narratives. In 2022, I was an artist-in-residence at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. As a guest in the Leighton Studios, supported by a Fleck Fellowship, I spent two weeks painting in place and exploring the surrounding mountain environment.

That same year, I expanded my professional representation in Alberta when Willock & Sax in Banff began representing The Art of Brandy Saturley.

In 2023 and again in 2025, I expanded my view of Canada through invitation-only artist residencies at the Pouch Cove Foundation in Newfoundland. Each residency lasted one month and allowed me to develop work rooted in place, shaped by my experience as a “come from away.” In 2025, I also presented a solo exhibition in Newfoundland, marking a moment when my work, not just myself, had fully landed in another region of Canada.

Later in 2025, I returned to Edmonton, Alberta, with a solo exhibition at the Miller Art Gallery on 124 Street. It was my first solo exhibition in Alberta since 2017, and I arrived with a significant body of new work. Titled The Wild Life, the exhibition featured paintings of polar bears and people, alongside a commissioned work created for the Canadian rock band The Tragically Hip. Sharing the continued evolution of my “Pop Canadianisms” with Alberta audiences was both meaningful and affirming.

Alberta Art Exhibitions – The Art of Brandy Saturley

Across provinces and over more than a decade, my practice has been shaped by movement, immersion, and conversation with place. Alberta, in particular, has played a significant role in this journey, with collectors, institutions, and communities supporting and collecting my work for nearly fifteen years. From urban centres to rural landscapes, coastlines to mountains, each exhibition and residency has added another layer to an evolving visual language rooted in Canadian experience. Sharing this work nationally continues to feel both purposeful and generous, allowing the stories within my paintings to meet new audiences while remaining grounded in the places that have championed them.