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Canadian in 2026

What Does It Mean to Be Canadian in 2026? Art, Identity and the Stories We Tell

What does it mean to be Canadian in 2026? It is a question I find myself thinking about more and more.

Perhaps that is because I have spent nearly two decades painting Canada. I have painted hockey players, polar bears, mountains, maple leaves, Canadian flags, Hudson’s Bay stripes, wildlife, wilderness and the people who inhabit these places. I have painted the things we recognize immediately as Canadian, but I have also spent years asking a deeper question:

What makes something feel Canadian? For me, the answer has never been as simple as a maple leaf or a flag. Canada is a collection of stories and those stories are constantly changing.

Canada is more than an image

I have always been fascinated by Canadian iconography. The maple leaf. Hockey. The Hudson’s Bay blanket. The Canadian flag. Mountains. Wildlife. Canoes. Snow. The coast.

These are recognizable symbols, but symbols are only the beginning. A symbol carries memory.

A hockey jersey might remind one person of childhood Saturday nights watching a game with their family. A maple leaf might represent national pride to one person and a complicated history to another. A landscape might evoke a family vacation, a place of belonging, a childhood home or simply the feeling of standing somewhere vast and beautiful. This is one of the reasons I am drawn to painting Canadian icons. I am less interested in simply reproducing the thing than in exploring what the thing means to us.

My paintings often begin with something recognizable, but I want them to become something more. I want the viewer to bring their own story to the painting.

I don’t think Canadian identity is one thing

Canada is enormous. From the Pacific coast where I live on Vancouver Island to the Atlantic provinces, from the Arctic to the Prairies, our experiences of this country can be dramatically different. There isn’t one Canadian landscape or one Canadian experience. And there certainly isn’t one Canadian identity. Our country contains many histories, cultures, languages, communities and perspectives. Indigenous histories and contemporary Indigenous voices are an essential part of understanding this place. So are the stories of generations of immigrants, French and English Canadian histories, regional cultures, rural communities, northern communities and the many people who have made Canada their home.

This complexity is part of what makes Canadian identity interesting to me as an artist. I don’t want to paint a Canada that feels frozen in time. I want to paint the Canada I am living in.

From coast to coast to coast

Over the years, my paintings have taken me across the country. I have painted and worked in Newfoundland, Alberta and the Northwest Territories. I have spent time in Banff, Yellowknife and on the Atlantic coast. I have travelled through landscapes that feel profoundly different from one another, yet somehow belong to the same enormous story. Now I am back home on Vancouver Island. After moving my home and studio from Victoria to Parksville in 2025, I have found myself looking at Canada from a distinctly West Coast perspective. The Salish Sea has entered my visual vocabulary. Orcas, ravens, eagles, sea lions, mountains, beaches, mist and water are becoming part of a new body of work. I walk the beaches near my studio and watch the tide move across the sand. I notice the birds. I watch the light change. I see the mountains in the distance. This is also Canada and it is the Canada I am experiencing now.

I have never really considered myself a traditional landscape painter. I am interested in the landscape, but I am often more interested in the stories we attach to it. A landscape can be a place, memory, mythology, history, identity, and a kind of character in a larger story. This is why figures, animals, cultural symbols and familiar Canadian objects often appear in my paintings. They allow me to move beyond simply depicting a location. I think of it as painting stories of the landscape rather than simply painting the landscape. That distinction has become increasingly important to me.

Canadian in 2026: Why Canadian art matters right now

This conversation feels particularly relevant in 2026. Earlier this month, the Canada Council for the Arts published an open letter titled Choosing Canadian Arts Means Choosing Canada. In it, Canada Council CEO Michelle Chawla described the arts as a way Canadians connect with one another and imagine their future, while emphasizing the importance of experiencing Canadian stories told in Canadian voices. I found that sentiment particularly resonant. Because a country is not only its borders, economy, politics or geography. A country is also the stories it tells about itself and Artists are part of that storytelling. So are writers, musicians, filmmakers, photographers, dancers, designers and all of the people who create culture.

We hold up a mirror. Sometimes that mirror shows us something familiar. Sometimes it shows us something we have never noticed before.

Contemporary Canadian art is not one visual language

You can see this diversity reflected in Canadian contemporary art right now. The 2026 Sobey Art Award exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada brings together six artists from across the country whose practices include sculpture, installation, photography, painting, film, textiles, metalwork and land-based practices. Their work explores subjects including memory, language, land, identity and cultural traditions. That range is important.

There is no single visual language that defines Canadian art, and I think that is exactly as it should be. Canadian art can be quiet or loud. Minimal or maximal. Traditional or experimental. It can look toward the land, the city, the body, history, technology, family, politics or memory.

It can be beautiful, uncomfortable, funny and ask difficult questions. It can simply make us stop and look.

My Canada is full of symbols

For much of my career, I have been called a Canadian Pop artist. I have even described my work as Pop Canadianisms. I like that phrase because it acknowledges the tension between popular culture and personal meaning.

I take familiar Canadian symbols and place them into new contexts. The maple leaf becomes more than a national emblem. The polar bear becomes a symbol of a changing climate. The Hudson’s Bay stripes become a piece of cultural memory.

A hockey mask becomes something larger than sport. A mountain can become a memory. A raven can become a messenger. A coastline can become home. The familiar gives us a doorway into the unfamiliar.

So, what does it mean to be Canadian in 2026?

I don’t think there is a single answer. Maybe that is the point.

Being Canadian in 2026 can mean many things to many people.

It can mean living beside the ocean and watching an orca surface, cheering for a hockey team, speaking French, English, an Indigenous language or one of the many languages spoken in Canadian homes. It can mean growing up in a small northern community or a major city, arriving here recently or having generations of family history rooted in this country. It can mean carrying complicated histories alongside genuine affection for this place or questioning what Canada has been while imagining what it could become.

And perhaps it can mean recognizing that our national story is still being written.

Artists are part of that story

That is where I believe art becomes particularly powerful. A painting doesn’t have to explain Canada. It can simply give us a place to think about Canada.

It can make us remember something, feel connected to a place, make us ask a question.

It can remind us of something we don’t want to forget and sometimes, it can make us see something familiar in an entirely new way. That is what I hope my paintings do. I don’t want to create a picture of Canada that tells you exactly what to think. I want to create paintings that give you something to feel, remember and interpret for yourself.

Because the story of Canada belongs to all of us, and in 2026, that story is still being painted.

Collecting Canadian Art

For me, collecting Canadian art is also a way of participating in that story. When you bring an original Canadian painting into your home, you are not simply bringing home an image of a place.

You may be bringing home a memory, a connection, a piece of cultural history, or a reminder of somewhere you have travelled or somewhere you call home. Or perhaps simply a feeling that you cannot quite put into words.

After twenty years of painting Canada, that is what continues to interest me most. Not simply what Canada looks like. What Canada feels like. And what stories we choose to carry forward.

September 21, 2026

Pacific Coastal Paintings

New Paintings

A Palette of Blues & Greens – Pacific Coastal Paintings

I am known for working in series when I paint. Often, a series begins with four to six paintings that, when hung together, create a larger narrative. Each painting can stand on its own as a singular story, but together they reveal something more. They are connected by colour, subject matter, place and the ideas that keep returning to my work.

Over the years, I have created painting series inspired by different regions of Canada and by the places I have travelled for my art. Some began during artist residencies, while others grew from journeys to exhibit my work, speak about my practice or simply spend time immersed in a particular landscape.

I have created substantial bodies of work inspired by my residencies in Newfoundland, Banff and Yellowknife. Each place offered its own visual language, wildlife, stories and atmosphere. These experiences have become part of a much larger narrative that runs through my work: my ongoing exploration of Canadian identity, landscape and the stories we attach to the places we call home.

Painting the Pacific Coast of Vancouver Island

This year, I have turned my gaze closer to home.

I live on Vancouver Island, on the Pacific coast of British Columbia, and the ocean and wildlife surrounding me have become an increasingly important source of inspiration. My daily encounters with the West Coast landscape are finding their way into a new series of Pacific coastal paintings.

This new body of work is united by a distinctive palette of blues, greens, greys and fluorescent yellow. The colours echo the atmosphere of the Pacific coast: deep ocean blues, mossy greens, misty skies, weathered rocks and flashes of brilliant colour that appear suddenly in the landscape. These paintings are not traditional landscape paintings in the literal sense. I am more interested in capturing the feeling of the West Coast and the energy of the creatures that inhabit it. My approach combines landscape, wildlife and visual storytelling, creating paintings that sit somewhere between observation and imagination.

Guardians and Tricksters of the Salish Sea

Orca, eagle, sea lion, raven and dolphin make appearances throughout this new series. And then there is the rare white raven, inspired by an actual encounter I had on the West Coast. These animals are more than subjects for me. They become characters.

The raven, with its intelligence and mythology, has long carried associations with transformation and trickster stories. The orca has become an iconic presence in the Pacific Northwest, while the eagle occupies an equally powerful place in the visual and cultural landscape of the coast. Together, these creatures suggest a world that is alive, watchful and constantly moving. I think of these four paintings as stories of tricksters and guardians of the Salish Sea.

The Salish Sea is not simply a backdrop. It is a living presence in the work. The water connects the islands, shorelines, forests and communities of the Pacific Northwest, while the wildlife reminds us that we share this environment with creatures whose lives are deeply connected to the health of the ocean.

Pacific Coastal Paintings: A West Coast Perspective

After years of travelling across Canada to paint, it feels significant to be looking so closely at the place I call home.

These Vancouver Island paintings are rooted in my experience of the Pacific coast, but they are also part of my larger exploration of Canada. From Newfoundland to Banff, Yellowknife to Vancouver Island, I continue to collect visual stories from across the country and translate them through my own contemporary Canadian art practice.

This new palette of blues and greens is my West Coast chapter. Four paintings. Four stories. One ocean.

And somewhere within them are the creatures who watch over it, move through it and remind us that the landscape is never truly still.

Trickster in White, c. 2026 Acrylic On Canvas 18 x 36 x 1.5 in Brandy Saturley

Ultramarine Jazz, c. 2026 Acrylic On Canvas 24 x 60 x 1.5 in Brandy Saturley

Guardians of The Salish Sea, c. 2026 Acrylic On Canvas 30 x 60 x 1.5 in Brandy Saturley

Sealions Song, c. 2026 Acrylic On Canvas 30 x 60 x 1.5 in Brandy Saturley

September 10, 2026

Canadian Pride

Canadian Art, Canadian Pop Art

A Love Letter to Canada – My Canadian Pride

Canada is currently in a trade war with the United States. None of us asked for this, but here we are and it is affecting my Canadian pride.

Saint Kanata, c. 2011 Acrylic 48 x 36 x 1.5 in Brandy Saturley

It has us stressed, scrambling, watching the headlines and wondering where all of this will take our country. Yet, alongside the uncertainty, something else seems to be happening. Canadians are looking inward. We are talking more about what we make, what we buy, where we invest our money and how we can support one another. In a strange way, this moment seems to be bringing Canadians together.

As a Canadian artist, I find myself doubling down on something I have been exploring for two decades: the stories, symbols and spirit of Canada. The more conversations I have about my work, the more I realize how deeply invested I am in the visual language I have created. I call it my Pop Canadianisms. I have spent twenty years turning the things I recognize as distinctly Canadian into paintings. Some are obvious symbols. Others are fragments of memory, place and culture that carry a particular feeling of being Canadian.

Hearts On Our Sleeves, 2017 Acrylic On Canvas 40 x 30 x 1.5 in Brandy Saturley

I have created powerful imagery around hockey, ice skating, the Canadian flag, the Alberta Rockies, the Prairies, polar bears, plaid shirts, toques, canoes, mountains, Muskoka chairs, Mounties, maple leaves, Hudson’s Bay blankets, beer, Yellowknife, Newfoundland, the Salish Sea and The Tragically Hip. Taken individually, these things may seem like a collection of Canadian clichés. Together, they become something else: a visual vocabulary for a country I know intimately. The last time I remember feeling such a tremendous swell of Canadian pride was during the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. I had only recently begun exploring my voice as a Canadian Pop artist. I started with a hockey mask and a Canadian flag, and from there my commentary began to take flight.

Goalie’s Mask: red, white & Dryden (The Goalies Mask Painting), c. 2011 Acrylic 48 x 36 x 1.5 in Brandy Saturley

What started as an exploration of Canadian iconography has grown into a body of work spanning twenty years and hundreds of paintings. These paintings tell stories about Canada, but they also radiate the feelings I have about this place. Pride. Belonging. Humour. Nostalgia. Contradiction. Awe. Sometimes even a little frustration. Canada is not a perfect country, and my paintings are not intended to suggest that it is. They are about paying attention to the things that make this country feel like home.

And right now, that feels especially important. This trade war is affecting how and where I do business. It is influencing the companies I buy from, the materials I use and the markets I consider. As an artist and small business owner, I feel those changes firsthand. But rather than pulling me away from my Canadian subject matter, it has done the opposite.

Come On, Just Let’s Go, c. 2024 Acrylic On Canvas 48 x 30 x 1.5 in Brandy Saturley

It has made me want to look more closely at Canada. To paint our landscapes. Our people. Our symbols. Our stories. The things we recognize immediately and the things we are still learning to understand. For me, making Canadian art is one small way of investing in Canada. Every painting is a conversation about who we are, where we come from and what we value. And perhaps that is one of the most meaningful things we can do in uncertain times: tell our own stories, support our own creative voices and keep making things that are distinctly our own.

Ride My Wake, c. 2014 Acrylic 36 x 48 x 1.5 in Brandy Saturley

This is my love letter to Canada.

I have been painting it for twenty years, and I am not finished yet.

Blind Love, c. 2026 Acrylic On Canvas 30 x 30 x 1.5 in Brandy Saturley

September 9, 2026

Homage to Prudence Heward

New Paintings

Dear Prudence: An Homage to Canadian Painter Prudence Heward

There are certain paintings that stay with you. This is about an homage to Prudence Heward.

For me, one of those paintings is Rollande, painted in 1929 by Canadian artist Prudence Heward. You may know it: a young woman in an apron stands in front of a farmhouse, hands on her hips, her gaze meeting the viewer with an unmistakable sense of presence. It is a striking and memorable painting, and one that I have returned to in my mind for years.

Prudence Heward was a Canadian figure painter celebrated for her bold use of colour, sculptural forms, and psychologically charged depictions of women. Working during the interwar period, she was associated with the Beaver Hall Group, was a founding member of the Canadian Group of Painters, and exhibited alongside members of the Group of Seven. Influenced by European modernism, Heward challenged conventional ideas of feminine beauty and representation, painting Canadian women as complex, self-contained figures with strength and presence.

In Rollande, it is the colour that first grabs me.

Rollande, Prudence Heward, 1929

The acid-pink apron burns against the green-gold field behind her. The woman’s direct stare, the atmospheric sky, the farmhouse and fence all create a tension that makes it difficult to simply glance at the painting and move on. The palette almost seems to vibrate. There is something simultaneously grounded and otherworldly about the figure, as though she belongs to the landscape but is also somehow separate from it.

I have been entranced by this painting for years. For a long time, I thought about creating an homage to Rollande. But an homage is not about simply recreating another artist’s painting. It is about allowing a work that has influenced you to enter your own visual language and become something new. It took me years to figure out what that might look like.

Homage to Prudence Heward: My answer is Dear Prudence.

In my version, I have painted a young blonde woman standing in a landscape inspired by Heward’s original. Her hair is being blown by the breeze and her eyes are closed, as though she is dreaming, imagining, or simply soaking up the moment. She wears a denim artist’s apron, covered in the inevitable evidence of making: paint splatters and marks from time spent in the studio. And then there is that acid pink. Rather than Heward’s pink apron, my figure wears an acid-pink T-shirt, a vivid flash of colour that vibrates against the green-gold landscape. Behind her, I have reimagined and abstracted elements of the landscape from Rollande, creating a visual conversation between Heward’s painting and my own.

Dear Prudence, 30″ x 20″, acrylic on canvas, 2026, Brandy Saturley

But Dear Prudence is not really about recreating Rollande. It is about what it means to be an artist. It is about dreaming. About having an idea before you know exactly how to make it. About vision, imagination and the willingness to step into the unknown and create something that did not exist before. The title Dear Prudence has a double meaning. It is, of course, a nod to Prudence Heward. But it is also a reference to The Beatles song “Dear Prudence,” with its invitation to come outside, open your eyes and engage with the world. That idea resonated with me.

Artists can spend enormous amounts of time in the studio, absorbed in the work, chasing an idea, solving a painting, staring at a canvas until the rest of the world seems to disappear. Sometimes we need that solitude. But sometimes we also need to step outside, look around, breathe in the day and allow ourselves to play.

Dear Prudence became my reminder of that. Come out of the studio. Open your eyes. Look at the landscape. Dream a little. Then come back and paint it. In creating this work, I am not only paying tribute to Prudence Heward, but acknowledging the way another Canadian artist’s vision can travel through time and spark something new in another artist. Nearly a century after Rollande, I find myself standing in a landscape, looking at a woman with her eyes closed, dreaming.

Dear Prudence, won’t you come out to play? This is the story of my painting, Dear Prudence.

Dear Prudence, c. 2026 Acrylic On Canvas 30 x 20 x 1.5 in Brandy Saturley

August 26, 2026

Canadian Art US Tariff

Art For Sale, Buying Art

When Buying Canadian Art Comes With a 50% US Tariff

For years, Canadian artists have looked south to the United States as one of the most important markets for selling art. American collectors have bought Canadian paintings, galleries have represented Canadian artists, and Canadian artwork has crossed the border countless times on its way to new homes.

Now, that relationship has become considerably more complicated. As of August 2026, the United States has imposed a new 50% tariff on a range of Canadian imports, and that list includes something that may come as a surprise to many people: Canadian art. According to the Canadian Artists’ Representation/Le Front des artistes canadiens (CARFAC), the affected categories include paintings, drawings, pastels, collages, original prints, lithographs and sculptures. The tariff applies to covered works produced in Canada and imported into the United States.

For an American collector, this can dramatically change the cost of purchasing a Canadian artwork. Imagine finding a painting you love for $10,000. That $10,000 painting could now carry an additional $5,000 tariff when it enters the United States. Suddenly, the decision to purchase a Canadian painting becomes a very different financial proposition.

And this is where things get interesting.

Lovers in a Dangerous Time (2025), c. 2025 Acrylic on wood panel 18 x 24 x 1.5 in Brandy Saturley

What does this mean for Canadian artists?

The United States has long been an important destination for Canadian art. It is a large and sophisticated art market with an enormous collector base. But this latest development is a reminder that relying heavily on a single international market can leave artists vulnerable to forces they cannot control. Artists can spend years building relationships with galleries, collectors and institutions in another country, only to find that a change in trade policy suddenly makes their work considerably more expensive for those collectors. That doesn’t mean Canadian artists should stop selling to the United States. It does mean we need to think more broadly.

Perhaps the question is no longer simply:

“How do I sell more art in the United States?”

Perhaps it is:

“How do I build a stronger market for Canadian art everywhere?”

Stitched in Canada, c. 2023 Acrylic 36 x 48 x 1.5 in – Brandy Saturley

Canadian collectors have an opportunity

This is where I believe Canadian collectors have an important role to play. If you have been thinking about buying a painting by a Canadian artist, this may be the moment to look closer to home. Canada has an extraordinary community of artists working across the country. From Newfoundland to British Columbia, from the Arctic to the Prairies and the Great Lakes, artists are telling the stories of this country in wildly different ways.

Canadian art is not one thing. It is landscape and abstraction. It is portraiture and Pop Art. It is Indigenous art, contemporary practice, photography, sculpture, ceramics and so much more. It is our stories, our places, our people and our particular way of seeing the world. And buying Canadian art does more than put a beautiful painting on your wall.

It supports an artist’s career. It keeps money circulating within Canada’s creative economy. It helps galleries continue to operate. And it gives Canadian stories a place to live.

Ride My Wake, c. 2014 Acrylic 36 x 48 x 1.5 in – Brandy Saturley – Private Collection Edmonton, Canada

Canadian Art US Tariff: Perhaps it is time to look beyond the American market

For Canadian artists, there is another opportunity hidden inside this difficult moment. If the United States becomes a more expensive market for Canadian art, perhaps we should be looking more deliberately toward other international markets. Europe, The United Kingdom, Australia, Asia and, importantly, Canada itself.

Canadian artists already have audiences around the world. The challenge is to continue building those audiences rather than assuming that the American market will always be the easiest or most accessible destination. For me, this is particularly relevant because so much of my work is about Canada.

For more than 20 years, I have been painting the people, places, wildlife, landscapes and cultural symbols that make up my own Canadian experience. My work has travelled across the country and beyond, and I have always believed that Canadian stories can resonate with audiences far outside our borders. But perhaps we should also be asking whether Canadians themselves are collecting enough Canadian art.

Royal Gaze 122cm x 91cm Acrylic on canvas – Brandy Saturley

Investing in Canadian stories

When you purchase an original painting from a Canadian artist, you are not simply purchasing an object. You are investing in a story. You might be buying a painting of a place you have visited, a landscape that reminds you of home, an animal that feels distinctly Canadian, or an interpretation of Canada that you have never seen before. You are also helping determine which stories survive. Artists document their time. We notice things. We interpret them. We make sense of the places we live and the moments we experience. A painting can become a record of a particular Canada. That makes collecting Canadian art more than a decorative decision.

It is a cultural investment.

Blind Love, c. 2026 Acrylic On Canvas 30 x 30 x 1.5 in – Brandy Saturley

The Canadian art market needs Canadian collectors

For years, Canadian artists have been encouraged to look outward. We have been told to build international careers, enter international markets, exhibit internationally and find collectors around the world. I still believe in all of that. But perhaps we also need to look inward. Canada has a tremendous amount of wealth, cultural diversity and artistic talent. There are collectors here who could play a much larger role in supporting Canadian artists. Imagine what could happen if more Canadians decided that their next artwork would come from a Canadian artist.

Imagine if Canadian businesses made Canadian art part of their collections. Imagine if Canadian homes, hotels, offices, hospitals and public spaces increasingly reflected the work of artists who live and work here. That would create a stronger ecosystem for Canadian art. And a stronger Canadian art market means Canadian artists have more choices.

Dreaming Under Northern Lights, 2022 Acrylic on Canvas 36 x 36 in – Brandy Saturley

Canadian Art US Tariff: The world is bigger than one border

The 50% U.S. tariff is frustrating for Canadian artists and collectors alike. It adds cost and uncertainty to something that should ultimately be about connecting a person with a work of art. But perhaps it also gives us a reason to rethink how we build an art career and how we collect art. The American market will undoubtedly remain important. But it does not have to be the only market. There are collectors elsewhere who are interested in Canadian art. There are galleries and art fairs beyond the United States. There are international audiences discovering Canadian artists every day.

And there is an enormous market sitting right here at home.

Canada.

Perhaps this is the moment for Canadians to look at the art being created around them and ask:

What Canadian artist would I like to live with?

Because while trade policy can put a tariff on a painting crossing a border, it cannot put a tariff on the cultural value of the painting itself. And perhaps the best response is to make sure Canadian art continues to find homes, here in Canada and around the world.

Buy Canadian art. Collect Canadian stories. Keep Canadian creativity moving.

Monarch of The Arctic Realms, c. 2024 acrylic and gouache on canvas 48 x 48 x 1.5 in – Brandy Saturley

August 24, 2026

Story of a Painting

Artist Process, Artist Residency

The Story of a Painting: A Winter Residency in Banff

It was winter 2022 when we loaded up the Jeep and drove from Vancouver Island through the Rockies to Banff. I had been awarded a two-week artist residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, and I was heading into the mountains with an oversized painting in mind.

Driving to Banff

When we arrived and drove toward the forest trail leading to the Leighton Studios, there was barely a trail to see. It had been buried beneath the snow. We checked into the residence and began unloading the Jeep. I had brought existing paintings with me so I could surround myself with my own work while I painted. I also brought everything I would need to create a very large new painting. With rolled canvas tucked under one arm and a backpack filled with paints, brushes and supplies on my back, I trudged through the snow toward my studio cabin.

Path to Thom Studio at Banff Centre

The path wound through a collection of cabins and distinctive studio buildings. I didn’t see another person. Only squirrels appeared, occasionally poking their heads out from behind snow-covered branches. Then came the squeak of the wooden cabin door and the familiar ritual of shaking the snow from my boots. I had arrived at the Thom Studio. Named after its architect, Ron Thom, the studio was an extraordinary place to work. Its tall, open interior walls were perfect for tacking up large canvases. A vaulted ceiling and skylights brought in soft natural light, while every window offered a view of the surrounding forest.

Inside Thom Studio – skylight

The skylights were temporarily covered with snow, but as the morning and midday sun warmed the roof, the snow would slowly disappear, revealing the light again. Inside the studio was an abalone shell with a bundle of sage, offered as part of the space’s connection to the traditions and practices of the place. It was a small but meaningful detail in a studio surrounded by the wilderness. By the end of that first day, I had unpacked my supplies, prepared the studio and begun to settle into my new surroundings.

That night, we slept in the residence on campus, surrounded by the forest and with the monumental Rocky Mountains rising around us.

The next morning, I pulled on my parka and snow boots and headed back through the forest toward the studio. Along the way, I passed a group of deer making their way through the snow. A few squirrels appeared again, along with a crow that seemed particularly interested in my arrival.

Squirrel along the trail

It began to feel as though the forest itself was welcoming me to my studio. Once inside, I put music on my laptop and began sketching. The blank canvas was enormous, and I wanted the painting to become more than an image of Banff. I wanted it to hold my experience of being there. As the days passed, I began transferring my sketches onto the canvas. The painting slowly took shape: a woman with dark hair and blue eyes, wrapped in a red parka with fur trim. Towering trees covered in snow. Wildlife encountered along the forest trails. And a beam of light breaking through the trees.

Brandy Saturley inside Thom studio at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity

These were the things I was seeing, but they were also the things I was feeling. The painting became a visual story of my time in Banff, a portrait of a winter landscape filtered through my own experience of being there. Two weeks went by quickly. When the residency came to an end, I removed the tacks from the studio wall and carefully rolled the canvases. The painting that had occupied that enormous white wall would have to wait.

Story of a Painting

It was time to drive home.

Back on Vancouver Island, I had the canvases stretched and assembled. What had begun in a snowy forest studio in Banff was finally completed at home. That is one of the things I love about artist residencies. A painting can begin in one place and finish somewhere completely different. The landscape, the experience and the memories travel with you.

Painting made at Banff Centre stretched and in Victoria BC studio

This painting still carries something of that winter journey within it: the snow-covered forest, the wildlife, the red parka, the enormous mountains and that fleeting beam of light through the trees. Today, the painting has been divided into two panels, each measuring 59″ x 56″, creating a large diptych that tells the story of a winter place in Canada.

The painting is available for purchase.

August 17, 2026

Contemporary Canadian Landscape Paintings

Art For Sale, Artist Process

Stories Written Across the Land: Contemporary Canadian Landscape Paintings

Contemporary Canadian landscape paintings have a long and important place in the story of Canadian art. From the mountains of the Rockies and the vast prairie skies to the rugged Atlantic coastline and the forests and beaches of the West Coast, the Canadian landscape has inspired generations of artists.

As a contemporary Canadian landscape painter, I am drawn to these places not simply because they are beautiful, but because they carry stories. For me, painting the landscape is a way of exploring our relationship with place, memory and Canadian identity. Over the years, I have created paintings of mountains, oceans, beaches, forests, wildlife and the distinctive places I have encountered while travelling across Canada.

But my approach to Canadian landscape art is not always traditional. I often bring a Pop Art sensibility to the landscape, using vivid colour, bold shapes and graphic details to transform familiar Canadian places into something fresh and contemporary.

Contemporary Canadian Landscape Paintings

Canadian landscape painter Brandy Saturley making an oversized landscape painting, 2019

What makes a Canadian landscape painting?

When we think about Canadian landscape paintings, we might immediately picture mountains, lakes, forests or expansive skies. These are certainly important elements of Canadian art, but I believe the Canadian landscape is about more than scenery. It is about experience.

A landscape can hold the memory of a journey, the feeling of standing beside the ocean, the quiet of a mountain lake or the exhilaration of seeing wildlife in its natural environment. A painting of a Canadian landscape can therefore become a visual record of both place and experience. That is what interests me.

I am less interested in simply reproducing what I see and more interested in capturing what it feels like to be there.

A Long and Winding Road, acrylic on canvas, 24 x 30 x 1.5 Brandy Saturley

My approach to Canadian landscape art

Much of my work begins with observation. I travel with a camera, sketchbook and a painter’s curiosity, collecting visual impressions of the places I encounter. A mountain range might catch my attention because of its shape. A beach might stay with me because of its colours. A particular stretch of coastline might become memorable because of the weather, light or something unexpected that happened there.

Back in the studio, those experiences become paintings. This is where my interest in Pop Art and contemporary Canadian landscape painting comes into play. I might intensify the colours, simplify the forms or emphasize particular shapes. A familiar landscape can become almost graphic. I want the viewer to recognize the place while also seeing it differently.

Cascade, acrylic on canvas, 36x48x1.5 inches Brandy Saturley

A Pop Art take on the Canadian landscape

Over the years, I have created a number of contemporary Canadian landscape paintings that combine recognizable Canadian scenery with the bold visual language of Pop Art.

For me, colour is particularly important. The deep blues of the Pacific Ocean, the turquoise of a Rocky Mountain lake, the greens of a coastal forest or the bright colours of Newfoundland fishing villages can become starting points for a painting. I am interested in taking those colours and pushing them further.

The result is a landscape that may be recognizable, but it is not necessarily a literal representation of the place. A mountain can become a bold geometric shape. An ocean can become an expanse of saturated colour. A forest can become a rhythmic pattern of trunks, branches and shapes. Wildlife can move from being simply part of the landscape to becoming an iconic Canadian subject.

This is one of the ways I connect my work to Canadian Pop Art and contemporary Canadian art.

Contemporary Canadian Landscape Paintings: Canada from coast to coast

Travel has played an enormous role in my development as a Canadian landscape artist. My paintings have taken me from the West Coast to the East Coast, through the Rocky Mountains, across the Prairies and into Newfoundland. Every region has given me something different to paint.

The Canadian Rockies

The Rocky Mountains offer some of the most recognizable landscapes in Canada. Mountains, lakes, glaciers and enormous skies create a visual language that is almost impossible to ignore. But rather than simply painting a postcard version of the Rockies, I am interested in the shapes, colours and emotional experience of being there. The mountains become both subject and symbol.

Mount Temple, acrylic on canvas, 36x48x1.5 inches Brandy Saturley

Newfoundland landscapes

Newfoundland has become another important part of my painting practice. The colourful houses, fishing boats, rocky coastline and deep Atlantic blues offer an extraordinary palette for a painter. My Newfoundland landscape paintings are rooted in my experiences of spending time on the island, including artist residencies and time spent painting in coastal communities.

Newfoundland has a visual personality all its own. It is colourful, rugged, dramatic and deeply connected to the sea.

I Lost My Souwester in Pouch Cove, 2023 Acrylic on Canvas 28 x 64 in Brandy Saturley

The West Coast and Vancouver Island

Today, my attention is increasingly focused on the landscape close to home. Living on Vancouver Island has opened up an entirely new chapter in my painting practice. The beaches, forests, mountains and marine life of the West Coast have become an important source of inspiration.

I am particularly interested in the landscape around the Salish Sea, where the ocean, islands, forests and wildlife create an ever-changing visual environment. Sea lions, orcas, bald eagles, beaches and coastal forests have all begun finding their way into my recent paintings. After years of travelling across Canada to find subjects, I am discovering that there is still an enormous landscape waiting to be explored close to home.

Two paintings of the Salish Sea by Brandy Saturley

Canadian landscape paintings are also about memory

One of the things I love most about painting landscapes is that a painting can mean something different to every viewer. I may paint a particular beach because of an experience I had there. Someone looking at the painting may remember a family holiday.

Another person may be reminded of the landscape where they grew up. Someone else may simply experience the colours and shapes as an emotional response. This is what makes Canadian landscape art so compelling. The artist brings one story to the painting. The viewer brings another.

The landscape becomes the place where those stories meet.

Prairie Flight, c. 2020 Acrylic 24 x 30 x 1.5 in Brandy Saturley

Contemporary Canadian landscape painting

Canadian landscape painting does not have to look a certain way. There is an important history of landscape painting in Canada, but contemporary Canadian artists continue to reinterpret the land through new materials, styles, ideas and perspectives. My own approach combines my fascination with Canadian iconography with the visual energy of Pop Art.

I am interested in the familiar Canadian symbols and landscapes that surround us, but I want to see what happens when they are pushed, simplified, amplified and reimagined. The result is my own form of contemporary Canadian landscape art. It is colourful. It is graphic. It is distinctly Canadian.

And sometimes, it is a little unexpected.

The Beach, c. 2025 Acrylic on wood panel 18 x 24 x 2 in Brandy Saturley

Painting the stories of Canada

Canada is an enormous country, and there will never be a shortage of landscapes to paint. There will always be another coastline, another mountain, another forest, another road leading somewhere I have never been. But after twenty years of painting professionally, I have learned that I am not really painting places.

I am painting stories of places. The landscape is the starting point. The colour, shape, memory and experience become the painting. From Newfoundland to Vancouver Island, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific, my Canadian landscape paintings are an ongoing visual record of my experience of this country. I paint Canada because I am endlessly curious about it.

And I suspect I will never run out of Canada to paint.

Red Rocks, c. 2025 Acrylic on wood panel 18 x 24 x 2 in Brandy Saturley

Explore More Canadian Art

If you enjoy Canadian landscape paintings, contemporary Canadian art and Pop Art-inspired paintings of Canada, I invite you to explore more of my work and follow my ongoing journey as a Canadian artist.

There are always new landscapes, stories and paintings emerging from the studio.

August 14, 2026

Contemporary Painters to Love

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Ten Contemporary Painters Brandy Saturley Loves

I keep a list. Contemporary Painters to Love.

It is a growing collection of contemporary painters whose work catches my eye, stops me for a moment, and makes me want to look a little longer. Some artists land on the list because of their colour. Others because of their way of simplifying a subject, their graphic sense of composition, or the sheer confidence of their mark-making.

Recently, I looked back at my list and noticed something interesting. There is a definite visual thread running through it. I seem to be drawn to artists who aren’t afraid of colour. Artists who use vivid palettes, strong contrasts and bold shapes. I like figurative paintings and landscapes that are simplified in form. There is often something almost graphic about the way they render their subjects. Their paintings don’t simply describe the world. They interpret it, edit it and turn up the visual volume.

Sound familiar? Perhaps.

But I wouldn’t necessarily say these artists influence my own work. Influence is a complicated thing, and I have spent more than twenty years developing my own visual language around Canadian iconography, landscape, popular culture and the things I encounter in my travels. What I can say is that I love looking at their work. And as an artist, I believe that matters.

Artists are collectors of visual experiences. We are constantly looking. We notice colour combinations, compositions, gestures, textures and ideas. We file things away somewhere in the back of our minds. Sometimes those observations find their way into our work. Sometimes they simply remain there as things we admire. In my case, these are artists whose work I appreciate enough that I could happily live with a painting by them.

Logan Maxwell Hagege – Running Wild – Oil

Ten Contemporary Painters to Love

1. Logan Maxwell Hagege

Hagege’s work immediately appeals to my love of bold, graphic imagery. There is a wonderful tension between recognizable subject matter and a highly designed approach to painting. His work has the visual punch of contemporary illustration while retaining the physical presence of paint.

2. Tony Thielen

Thielen has a wonderful ability to take everyday subjects and give them a strong sense of place and personality. His paintings have a confident graphic quality that makes the familiar feel fresh.

3. Ed Mell

There is something wonderfully monumental about Ed Mell’s paintings. His simplified forms, dramatic landscapes and powerful use of colour create an almost sculptural quality. He understands that you don’t need every detail to communicate a landscape. Sometimes the right shape says everything.

4. Malcolm T. Liepke

Liepke’s paintings demonstrate just how expressive a limited subject can become in the hands of a confident painter. His figures, interiors and portraits have atmosphere, gesture and a strong painterly presence. His work reminds me that contemporary painting can be both sophisticated and emotionally immediate.

5. Jenn Mann

Jenn Mann’s paintings have a visual intensity that I find compelling. There is colour, pattern, surface and energy, but also a sense of mystery. Her work invites you in visually before revealing more of itself.

Jenn Mann

6. Eyvind Earle

Although Earle’s career reaches back well before what we might call contemporary painting today, I can’t leave him off this list. His influence on visual culture is enormous, and his stylized landscapes remain extraordinary.

His trees, mountains, skies and architectural forms are reduced to elegant shapes and patterns. Colour becomes structure. Nature becomes design.

As someone obsessed with landscape, I find that endlessly fascinating.

7. Jen Stark

Jen Stark’s work is a joyful explosion of colour, pattern and movement. Her paintings and visual works seem to operate somewhere between abstraction, nature and optical experience.

There is an incredible sense of rhythm in her work. It reminds me that colour doesn’t simply describe an object. Colour can become the subject itself.

8. John Capitano

Capitano’s work has that immediate visual impact I find so appealing. Strong colour, simplified forms and graphic compositions create paintings that communicate quickly but reward longer looking.

That combination is harder to achieve than it looks.

9. Mitchell Fenton

Mitchell Fenton’s work has a wonderful balance between recognizable imagery and contemporary abstraction. His approach to shape and colour creates paintings that feel both familiar and unexpected.

I am always interested in that space between representation and abstraction. It is a place where a painting can begin with something recognizable and then take the viewer somewhere else entirely.

10. Zach Atticus

Zach Atticus brings another kind of energy to the list. His work demonstrates how contemporary painting can borrow from the visual language of popular culture, graphic design and illustration while still feeling distinctly painterly. That intersection is particularly interesting to me.

Zach Atticus Between Worlds, 2025 Oil on panel 30 x 24 x 1.5 in

Contemporary Painters to Love: What Does This List Say About Me?

Perhaps the most interesting part of making a list like this isn’t the list itself. It’s what the list reveals. Looking at these artists together, I see a fascination with bold colour, simplified form, strong composition and recognizable imagery. I see artists who aren’t afraid to make a visual statement.

And maybe that shouldn’t be surprising.

My own work has always been driven by my fascination with Canadian iconography. I love taking something familiar and looking at it again through a different lens. A hockey mask. A Hudson’s Bay blanket. A polar bear. A west coast beach. A Newfoundland house. The subject may be familiar and the painting doesn’t have to be.

I also think there is something valuable about knowing what you love as an artist and not necessarily what you want to paint like. What you simply love to look at, there is a difference. I don’t need to paint like Logan Maxwell Haege, Ed Mell or Jen Stark to appreciate what they are doing. In fact, I think being able to admire another artist’s work without immediately trying to absorb it into your own practice is an important part of being an artist.

Sometimes you just get to be the audience, and sometimes you get to be the collector. This list is still growing, and I’m sure I’ll discover another painter tomorrow who deserves a place on it. For now, these are ten contemporary painters whose work I would happily spend more time looking at.

And yes, I would happily hang one on my wall, too.

Who would be on your list?

Ed Mell

August 13, 2026

Cairns of Love

New Paintings

Painting Towers of Rock: Cairns of Love

I walk and hike a lot. It keeps me fit, but more importantly, it keeps me seeing the world.

From the coastal shores of Newfoundland to the beaches of Vancouver Island, I have put on many miles exploring Canada on foot. Walking gives me a different way of experiencing a place. I notice the small things: the shape of a rock, the way light falls across the water, a weathered piece of driftwood, or something unexpected that someone has left behind.

One thing I have encountered again and again along Canada’s coastlines and trails is the humble tower of rock.

Cairns are carefully balanced piles of stones that have been created for many different purposes and across many cultures. They can mark trails, commemorate a place or person, serve practical purposes, or simply become spontaneous works of human creativity. I often find them along beaches, where people have taken a handful of stones and transformed them into small sculptures against the landscape.

Rock Towers on the beaches of Vancouver Island

In Canada, these structures can sometimes be confused with inuksuit or inukshuk. While both involve stones, they are not interchangeable. Inuksuit are culturally significant structures traditionally created by Inuit and other Arctic Indigenous peoples, with specific purposes and meanings. The familiar human-like inukshuk has also become a widely recognized symbol associated with Canada and the North.

The structures I encounter on my walks are often much simpler. I think of them as rock towers. Perhaps because there is something irresistible about the challenge: how high can you build a tower from loose stones before gravity wins? I have seen them lining beaches where people walk every day, marking trails to lighthouses in Newfoundland, and appearing along paths in northern landscapes. Some are tiny and delicate. Others are surprisingly tall, each stone balanced precariously on the one beneath it. And there is something deeply human about that act. Someone has stopped walking long enough to build something.

Cairns of Love, c. 2026 Acrylic On Canvas 36 x 18 x 1.5 in – Brandy Saturley

Painting of rock towers – Cairns of Love

These little towers have begun appearing in my paintings, becoming another recurring symbol in my continually expanding view of Canada. They are part landscape, part sculpture and part evidence of human presence. My newest painting, Cairns of Love, features two rock towers standing side by side, constructed from stones of different shapes, colours and textures. I was drawn first to their height, but then to their individual forms and the relationship between them.

Two towers. Side by side. Perhaps that is what caught my attention most. I see these cairns as small monuments to connection. They are temporary, vulnerable and entirely dependent on balance, yet someone took the time to build them. There is affection in that gesture, whether the builder intended it or not.

For me, Cairns of Love is another way of painting what I find when I am out walking through Canada: the landscape itself, and the small traces people leave behind within it.

Another discovery. Another story. Another little piece of Canada that has found its way onto my canvas.

Paintings in progress – Brandy Saturley studio 2026

August 10, 2026

Coastal Beach Paintings

New Paintings

The Coastal Life: Beach Paintings

I grew up on the beaches of the West Coast of Canada. Laced with salt and sand, my childhood summers were long, open-ended days filled with treasure hunts along the shoreline.

The beach offered everything we needed: a place to run, build castles from sand, collect shells, and create new things from the rocks, driftwood, and treasures we discovered. The days were wonderfully exhausting. Salt air made for deep sleeps, and by the end of each day we were completely spent, ready to continue our adventures in dreams.

Our days were magical and sun-kissed, with the wind tossing our hair and shaping the waves. When the tide went out, we would walk as far as our wet sneakers would allow, following the shoreline over rippled sand and watching tiny crabs scurry beneath our feet. Every trip to the beach was an adventure, but it was also an opportunity to make something: a castle, a sculpture, a shelter, a collection of treasures arranged just so.

When I moved to Parksville, BC last year, those early memories began flooding back. Here, the beaches seem to stretch endlessly when the tide goes out, revealing a vast landscape of sand, shells, driftwood, rocks, and little discoveries. That same childlike instinct to explore and create has returned.

Piece of Mind, c. 2025 Acrylic On Canvas 30 x 30 x 1.5 in – Brandy Saturley (beach shells painting)

Now, my beach walks are often small missions. I set out looking for specific things: an unusual shell, an interesting piece of driftwood, a collection of stones, or evidence of what others have built along the shore. I photograph my finds and sometimes arrange them into temporary compositions, leaving them behind for someone else to discover.

Coastal Beach Paintings

Lately, these beach treasures have been making their way into my paintings. Cairns (towers of rocks) and floating shells. Stacks of driftwood transformed into makeshift shelters. Simple arrangements created by nature, by beachcombers, or by the passing hands of strangers. I am drawn to the evidence of human curiosity and creativity found along the shoreline. Someone has stopped to stack these rocks. Someone has gathered this driftwood. Someone has arranged these shells. Each little construction is temporary, destined to be scattered by the next tide, yet for a moment it becomes a work of art.

Beach House, c. 2025 Acrylic On Canvas 36 x 48 x 1.5 in – Brandy Saturley (beach shelter painting)

Perhaps that is what I find so compelling. The beach has always been a place of making for me. As a child, I made things from whatever I could find. Today, I make paintings from those same memories and discoveries. The materials have changed, but the impulse remains.

I am exploring these coastal themes in my newest paintings, giving shells, stones, driftwood, tides, and childhood memories a new life on canvas. They are paintings about the West Coast, but also about the instinct we carry with us to explore, collect, arrange, build, and create.

Some things, it seems, never really leave us. Sometimes they simply wash back in with the tide.

Beach shells paintings by Brandy Saturley, 2025

August 10, 2026