Catherine Beaudette

Catherine Beaudette is a Canadian artist, occasional curator, and past professor at OCAD University. She is the founder of Bonavista Biennale and 2 Rooms Contemporary Art Projects in Newfoundland; Loop Gallery and Howard Park Institute in Toronto; and GALLERY 202 in Pictou NS- grass roots initiatives designed to stimulate local economies and empower creative communities. Born in Québec, she divides her time between Montréal and Nova Scotia. Her art practice stems from both places where she collects objects and specimens to form the basis of her paintings, photographs and installations. Beaudette has attended artist residencies in France, Greece, Spain, Serbia/Montenegro, Havana, Dawson City, Banff and Fogo Island. She received her MFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 1998.

Much of my work is connected to the sea and the communities that border it. Spanning Montreal to Newfoundland, my expanded practice as visual artist and cultural worker includes projects in and outside the studio. My recent paintings and photographs examine the critical role ocean organisms like seaweed and oysters play in the health and sustainability of the ocean’s biodiversity. 

These projects continue my practice of collecting and arranging specimens and artifacts into assemblages that evoke museological display. Selected and classified according to my own taxonomies, the natural and manmade objects I collect, document and ultimately install serve as the foundation of my paintings, photographs and installations. Working in different media in a variety of locations, excavating the detritus of everyday life, I borrow from the methodologies of art history, archaeology, anthropology and natural history to create artworks that interchange nature and culture.