Cultural Background: Cree
Betty Albert aka Wabimeguil belongs to the Chapleau Cree First Nation in Northern Ontario. She began her career in 1991. As a professional artist she concentrated her art in representing native women and spirituality. Her artwork has a special connection to the land and culture of the James Bay Cree. Both have served as the backdrop against which she has spent over thirty years evolving and developing her own distinct style of Indigenous artwork.
Through her art Betty attempts to represent the strength and beauty of the feminine when it its grounded in the Great Spirit, women’s sacred dignified, and self-defining spiritual beings. She is most productive in solitude, alone with her tools. Her artwork gives expression to the peace that she experiences when she enters this sacred space of creation. While she has had success throughout North America and beyond, her artwork has been especially well received by her people, the James Bay Cree. She often shares that if her artwork is beautiful, it is only because she has spent her life trying to capture and reflect the beauty of the James Bay Cree people, the beauty of their culture and the beauty of the land. She divides her time between the province of Ontario and Manitoba where she spends time with her sons, their partners, her grandchildren and her ceremonial family.
