Anong Migwans Beam
Gathering ColourGallery Gevik is excited to present Gathering Colour, an exhibition of recent paintings by M’Chigeeng based artist and colourist Anong Migwans Beam. These works come to us after a nearly three-year long tour of public galleries across Ontario. Special thanks go to curator Elka Weinstein who mounted the original exhibition at Campbell House Museum in 2020 and organized the subsequent tour to the Woodland Cultural Centre, Brantford, the Ojibwe Cultural Foundation, M’Chigeeng, the Midland Cultural Centre, Midland, and the Muse – Douglas Family Art Centre in Kenora. We’re also thrilled to be exclusively showcasing seven new works on birch panel that evoke the artist’s memories of her home on Manitoulin Island, using rich colour and dream-like imagery.
Anong Migwans Beam is inspired by the physical history of place, the natural landscape, and the relationship between water and memory. Anong was born to artist parents, Carl Beam and Ann Beam, who encouraged her to develop as an artist. She was raised with a meaningful connection to both her artistic familial roots and rich ancestral heritage. Beam’s oil paintings incorporate a multitude of image making approaches, including photo transfer, printmaking and collage which have been inspired by the physical history of her home and its surrounding landscapes. Anong has not only used her home as an inspiration for her work but also for creating her own oil and watercolour paints, which are sourced from local pigments and minerals.
Fairfield Porter’s Camp at Elk Lake, 2023
oil on birch panel, 24" x 18"
Hopper’s House at Buck Island, 2023
oil on birch panel, 24" x 18"
Mountain Lake, 2018 (SOLD)
oil & photo transfer on canvas, 72" × 72" (SOLD)
Paddling Under Animal Bridge (Killarney), 2023 (SOLD)
oil on birch panel, 24" x 18" (SOLD)
Crossing Up in M’Chigeeng, 2023 (SOLD)
oil on birch panel, 24" x 18" (SOLD)
Carmichael Missing the Obvious, 2023 (SOLD)
oil on birch panel, 24" x 18" (SOLD)
Elk, 2017 (SOLD)
oil & photo transfer on canvas, 40" × 30" (SOLD)“I have been painting memories, my practice has always centered around water and how it holds and contains us and is silent witness again and again to all events, constantly renewed and present in us, as it was for our ancestors. But now I am looking back and I feel like I am reclaiming histories for myself. I am inspired by images from other histories of place . . . sections of Tom Thomson’s West Wind, and Jack Pine, appear with Peter Doig’s Camp Forestia, alongside a ghost moose, myself swimming in the lake, my boat in Swallow Lake at first snow. My father’s recurring image of a rocket launch, birds, and birds and birds! An old Cadillac, fireworks, lakes, birds, bears, and the stars. It is just immensely pleasurable to rectify this even if it is just in my paint-world. I love these painters as well and hold them to no ill will! Peter Doig, Tom Thomson, Kim Dorland, these men are painting their lives, and I am grateful to live in a time and place where I can do the same.” – Anong Migwans Beam
In addition to her artistic work, Anong Migwans Beam is an outspoken advocate for the preservation of Indigenous archaeology and ceramics within local communities. From 2016-2017 Beam served as the Art Director and Executive Director of the Ojibwe Cultural Foundation. Later that year, she launched her successful line of watercolour and oil paints known as BEAM Paints. In 2022 Anong was invited to speak at the Art Gallery of Ontario in partnership with AIC 2022: Sensing Colour, a midterm meeting of the International Colour Organization (AIC), organized by the Colour Research Society of Canada. In June 2023, the artist was honored to be invited as a guest instructor in painting at Harvard Art Museums.
