Laura Power
Northern News Services
Published Friday, November 16, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - After more than a decade of living and travelling in the North, Bev Anderson was inspired to re-create her surroundings through art.

"That's how I actually started painting," she said. "I was intrigued by the rocky landscapes and our distinct architecture around the city here."

Bev Anderson is a Yellowknife-based artist who will have some of her work on display this month at Squatterz Books & Curiosities. - Laura Power/NNSL photo

Now, 17 years after she first began watercolour painting, she is still producing enough art for a new exhibit, her fourth in Yellowknife since she picked up the brush.

The new exhibit, called Faces and Places, is a collection of about 20 of her recent paintings, including work inspired by both the North and the south.

"It's mostly watercolour portraits of people that I've met and photographed in Mexico while I was down from there as well as people from the North here that I've met and photographed while I was travelling on my previous job," she said.

During her Northern travels, Anderson said she's been everywhere from Tuktoyaktuk to Pangnirtung. With the inspiration she drew there as well as what she took from her recent travels in Mexico, she found a theme for her new exhibit.

"It's about the people that I've met and trying to capture expressions of the young and the old as they go about their daily life," she said. "To me, a human face is the ultimate subject of painting. There's incredible beauty in every person and my goal as an artist is to capture that, and I hope that I do."

While she says there are many subjects that may interest her as a painter, she is most intrigued by people.

"If something catches my artistic eye, I'm hoping that they see what I see, you know, that it's an interesting and unique subject," she said.

The exhibit began yesterday evening at Squatterz Books & Curiosities and will continue until Nov. 30. outside of regular opening hours, Anderson will have the side door open for viewers to come in between 4 and 7 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays.

She expects to be present for the whole exhibit.