Brandy Wilson
Artist Story
I graduated from high school in Inuvik and continued my education in the Fibre Department at the Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary, Alberta. After graduation, I moved to Fort Smith; I was destined to return to the North because I am a northern girl. I am a proud Northerner and I love the land. While cycling in town and on the trails in Fort Smith I noticed the summer air had a sweet scent; it was wildflowers.
Through experimenting with new tools, I brought a flower from my garden into my studio to capture its image and thought ‘this is really beautiful!’ I began keeping an eye the roadside ditches for the colourful plant life. My curiosity in northern plants turned into a year-round passion because the landscape is in a constant state of flux.
As the wildflowers and plants are sprouting up, I collect samples and arrange them to create an image. The image is a portrait of a moment in time. The works are printed on a large scale to reveal the tiny details in nature that are all around us but easily overlooked; fine hairs on the stem, the serrated edge of a leaf or veins in a petal. I always look forward to what parts of the plant will be revealed and what remains of the plant will be left behind.
I have presented my work in Fort Smith, Fort Simpson and Yellowknife. The two most recent exhibits are titled Thebacha Trails & Roadside Ditches and Breath of the Land: a Botanical Journal of Bathurst Inlet.
Brandy Wilson was born and raised in Inuvik, Northwest Territories, on the Mackenzie Delta. She grew up in a creative household where she discovered sewing at an early age. In 2005, Brandy earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from Alberta College of Art and Design. The various surface design and fabric manipulation techniques she was taught, prompted her to create garments with her own designed fabric made from traditional and non-traditional materials.
She has previously shown her work at the Great Northern Art Festival in Inuvik, Northwest Territories and Art aWEARness in Calgary, Alberta. In 2001, she was selected to represent the North in the National Artist Program at the Canada Summer Games in London, Ontario.
Brandy has moved toward exploring digital photographic media. Her inspiration is the foliage and vegetation in the Fort Smith area. Through this medium, she captures the intense colour and fine detail of small wildflowers, weeds and leaves, monumentalizing them for the viewer to examine.
In 2010, Brandy was one of ten artists selected to be part of the Artist Delegation to represent the Northwest Territories at the 2010 Olympics. Her work was exhibited at Canada's Northern House in Vancouver, British Columbia
Artist Gallery
