Pamela Vickerson
Home: Calgary, Alberta
Title: Beatrice
Media: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 122 x 150 cm
Instagram: @pamela.vickerson
ARTIST STATEMENT
Over the last year I invited seniors from my community to participate in a portrait project. Some were strangers to me, others were acquaintances. I began with my 84-year-old mother, Beatrice. Throughout the project I’ve been considering what makes a community strong and healthy, the importance of multi-generational friendship, and what healing through community can look like. Each participant agreed to spend an afternoon visiting with me. They chose where to be photographed, and their objects and spaces naturally prompted many stories. Even Beatrice surprised and encouraged me with new stories and perspectives. This portrait is a container of that afternoon with my mother. The seniors’ portrait project that she inspired concludes with an exhibition and party to celebrate the sitters with their friends and families.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Pamela Vickerson (BFA ’24) is a multidisciplinary artist practicing in Mohkinstsis/ Calgary. Vickerson attended university for the first time in her fifties. Her creative practice explores how identity and life-stories become anchored in the objects and spaces we live with over time. Incorporating collecting, painting, and story exchange she considers the role that memory objects play while transitioning through various experiences of loss and changing life-stages.