ANN BEAM and ANONG BEAM

Beyond Space and Time
September 20 to November 9, 2008

Our fall season opens with a show by two artists from the M’Chigeeng community on Manitoulin Island: Ann Beam and her daughter Anong Beam. Working from a foundation of tradition, both artists are exploring a broad range of subjects, materials and cultural influences.

A personal iconography permeates Ann Beam’s work: her large canvases and watercolours reveal Native themes juxtaposed with spiritual references to Asian and Middle-Eastern cultures. Not afraid to position herself and her work in the broadest context, her work often reflects references to popular Western culture, from magazine covers to archetypal images of planet Earth.

Ann Beam’s journey through artmaking over the past forty years, her exploration of her own ancestry, and her engagement with the most progressive movements in North American history, all emerge in the simple gestures that form her work. Alongside her late husband, Carl Beam, she helped expand the vocabulary of contemporary art practice to include a multidisciplinary, multimedia approach to image composition. And today she continues to display a strength of conviction that allows her to portray herself in ironic analogy to the familiar Red Bird matchbox or to a more heartfelt and optimistic prayer that hovers far above us all.

Ann’s work includes books of stories and illustrations for children in both English and Ojibwe. She will read from these works at 4:00 on the day of the opening.

As the daughter of artists, Anong Beam has been making art all her life, working alongside her parents. She attended the Ontario College of Art & Design, and her work has been exhibited in Canada and the U.S. In her paintings, Anong blends spirituality and the pragmaticism of politics with a broad interest in Japanese and Hindu forms and traditions.