Bev Brenna

Prairie Love Poem 

The driving force behind this collection of work is my deep and heartfelt connection to the rural prairie setting. When I look out over prairie landscapes I see them as poetry, and I hope that my visual art presents this quality to viewers. 

The paintings in this group were created over the last few months. They blend my memories of place and space in rural Saskatchewan with present experiences. It is my intention to celebrate the commonplace, honouring sky and horizon, field and marsh. I position myself as an observer just outside the frame, invisible yet emotionally invested in the visual moment. These are all places I have been part of, and simultaneously, they are part of me. As points of entry into the natural world they conjure reverence and a meditative state in which I prepare a palette and lay down brush strokes, often working quickly to capture ephemeral moments. 

My new middle-grade novel, Sadi's Dragons (Thistledown Press, 2026), also displayed here, pays tribute to the information on art and artists I gathered during my experiences with the Community Arts and Artisanship Program. There aren't many chapter books available for young readers that include art themes, and I hope that in some small way my work might advance a change. 

I recognize as a guest on this land that I am connected to the Treaty Territories and Métis homelands where I have created artistic work. I pay my respects to the first peoples of these spaces. 

~Mentor: Lia ter Heide, CAAP Instructor

Bev Brenna is a visual artist and writer from Saskatoon. She paints from her home studio and Emma Lake cabin, using original photos as source material, as well as en plein air across Saskatchewan, working in watercolour and acrylic. Influenced by impressionism, expressionism, and poetics, Bev is inspired by settings that reveal small variations in colour, intensity of figure and ground, wind, and light. 

Bev has traditionally published 18 books for young people, with fiction shortlisted for a Governor General’s Literary Award and listed on CBC’s Young Adult Books That Make You Proud to be Canadian. Three of Bev’s novels include artists and art themes: Sadi’s Dragons (Thistledown Press, 2026); The Girl with the Cat (Red Deer Press, 2020); and The White Bicycle (Red Deer Press, 2012).   

Formally educated with degrees from the University of Saskatchewan, and a PhD from the University of Alberta, Bev spent many years as a classroom and special education teacher as well as a university faculty member. She is now a professor emerita in the College of Education at the U of S. Over the last few years, she has had solo and group exhibitions in public and commercial galleries across the province. She is a member of CARFAC as well as Iris, a local art group, and she is represented by Dandelion Gallery in Saskatoon.