Hailing from the nation’s capital, Ottawa Ontario, Michelle Beauregard left home and moved to Toronto to attend the Ontario College of Art and Design in 2002. It was her love of all things painting and Canadian art history that made the decision to study art an easy one. Michelle laughs now to think of how she used to skip high school classes so that she could walk through the halls of the National Gallery and take in the colourful landscape paintings of the Group of Seven and Emily Carr.
One year before graduating OCAD with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, Michelle hopped a Greyhound bus and made her first solo journey into Western Canada: a trip that would stay with her and drive home her love of the vast Canadian landscape with its ever-changing colours, textures, patterns, and moods. Always a nature-lover, she found inspiration in the big, wild, open-spaces and it felt like she was coming home within them.
In the summer of 2007, Michelle took a job as a boat captain and guide at Maligne Lake in Jasper National Park. It would be a major turning point in her life and a space in which she found her artistic voice, as well as her confidence as a performer who had recently discovered her love for the banjo and old songs. Distance from the city and proximity to beautiful landscapes and wildlife kept her going between Ontario and Alberta for several years, before making the final decision to call herself a Westerner at the end of 2014.
It was living in the mountains where Michelle’s work really began to shine as she took inspiration from mountain peaks, wildflowers, and the fur and feathered inhabitants in one of the most beautiful areas of the country. Producing original oil and acrylic works and woodburnings, she began to sell her originals, as well as prints and cards of her artwork to friends and family as well as many travellers passing through on their holidays. She gained confidence in the quality of her work during this time and began to sell it through the Friends of Jasper National Park store, the Jasper Museum, and the Jasper Wellness Market. Michelle worked as a tour guide and felt it to be an incredible privilege to show guests the landscape, share the stories of its history, and to watch wildlife, all the while collecting inspiration for her own artwork. When not guiding she played banjo in a stringband who would tour even further westward all the way to the coast and back during the summers.
Now Michelle lives in Prince Rupert, British Columbia, where she followed the path of the Skeena River to land in May 2021. She continues to paint and be inspired by the rugged coastal landscape, plays her banjo and is taking classes in coastal ecology so that she may be more acquainted with the living ecosystems that will further inform her work. Between painting and studying, Michelle also enjoys running and hiking the local trails, and hopes to get to Alaska one day.
One year before graduating OCAD with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, Michelle hopped a Greyhound bus and made her first solo journey into Western Canada: a trip that would stay with her and drive home her love of the vast Canadian landscape with its ever-changing colours, textures, patterns, and moods. Always a nature-lover, she found inspiration in the big, wild, open-spaces and it felt like she was coming home within them.
In the summer of 2007, Michelle took a job as a boat captain and guide at Maligne Lake in Jasper National Park. It would be a major turning point in her life and a space in which she found her artistic voice, as well as her confidence as a performer who had recently discovered her love for the banjo and old songs. Distance from the city and proximity to beautiful landscapes and wildlife kept her going between Ontario and Alberta for several years, before making the final decision to call herself a Westerner at the end of 2014.
It was living in the mountains where Michelle’s work really began to shine as she took inspiration from mountain peaks, wildflowers, and the fur and feathered inhabitants in one of the most beautiful areas of the country. Producing original oil and acrylic works and woodburnings, she began to sell her originals, as well as prints and cards of her artwork to friends and family as well as many travellers passing through on their holidays. She gained confidence in the quality of her work during this time and began to sell it through the Friends of Jasper National Park store, the Jasper Museum, and the Jasper Wellness Market. Michelle worked as a tour guide and felt it to be an incredible privilege to show guests the landscape, share the stories of its history, and to watch wildlife, all the while collecting inspiration for her own artwork. When not guiding she played banjo in a stringband who would tour even further westward all the way to the coast and back during the summers.
Now Michelle lives in Prince Rupert, British Columbia, where she followed the path of the Skeena River to land in May 2021. She continues to paint and be inspired by the rugged coastal landscape, plays her banjo and is taking classes in coastal ecology so that she may be more acquainted with the living ecosystems that will further inform her work. Between painting and studying, Michelle also enjoys running and hiking the local trails, and hopes to get to Alaska one day.