Introducing Scott Bertram, Prairie North Artist-in-Residence
Scott Bertram is the first of two artists-in-residence who will create work for the Prairie North Artist Residency in Summer 2026. Hosted through a partnership between AGGP and Northwestern Polytechnic, the work Scott creates will be featured in our forthcoming group exhibition, The Shape of Shape, co-curated by AGGP’s Jessica Groome and Laura Marotta of NWP.
He is a painter who works in abstraction and values improvisation, chance and discovery, and the journey of uncovering how perception works in the world and his paintings. Scott holds a BFA from the University of British Columbia Okanagan and an MFA from NSCAD University in Halifax. His painting practice has been recognized in venues like the RBC Painting Competition and by funding organizations like the BC Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts. Living in the Comox Valley of Vancouver Island, Scott has shown his work across North America, Australia and the UK in solo and group projects.
Here, Scott shares with us his experience of the first part of his residency, the ways of working and thinking that he will explore, and a bit more about his philosophy of painting.
My time at the residency so far has consisted of building the frames and stretching the canvas for two large 84” x 76” canvases as well as beginning with some of the initial layers. Other than knowing the size of the works that I was going to be making during this residency, I didn’t come in with a plan in mind, and definitely not a predetermined final image that I would work towards. This is the way that I usually work as, for me, the painting process is much like a dialogue between me and the painting. I can suggest something on the canvas by putting a layer of paint on, but then I must respond to the different possibilities that are presented on the canvas afterwards.
It is best for me when I am leaving the process open and uncertain, rather than dictating what the final painting will be. I’m still not positive where these paintings will end up, or what they will look like, so a lot will change during the next week and a half that I am here.
One of the thematic elements in the exhibition that these two paintings will be in, is the idea of shape. I work with all of the visual elements in my paintings obviously; colour, value, texture, etc. However, shape is something that has always been one of the most important elements to me. A goal of any of my paintings is to achieve a sense of an openness of possibilities as well as an acceptance of uncertainty within the final image.
Shape specifically can provide a container for potential meanings and associative possibilities, as the way that a curve that meets a straight line or the way that one form interacts with another can suggest many things to different people depending on what the shapes remind them of and how they interpret them.
All images courtesy of the artist.
