Christi Belcourt’s paintings are lush, colourful, a celebration of earth’s beauty.

A Canadian Métis – French European and First Nations people – her art references traditional beadwork and quillwork of her culture, coming together, creating a swirling, majestic, tribute to Mother Nature.

Canada’s Metis are famous for their floral beadwork designs – sewn onto moccasins, bandolier bags, and various other objects.

Among First Nations people the Métis are often referred to as the Flower Beadwork People.

Belcourt took her inspiration from these beadwork’s – simulating thousands of beads with a paintbrush using acrylic paint – first by adding a few dots here and there, later expanding to the full-fledged dotting method.

Her painting – Water Song – now hanging in the National Gallery of Canada took 250,000 dots to complete.

Water Song

The painting is a moving fluid canvas of plants, animals, insects, and water droplets weaving lyrically around each other.

“I want all human beings to feel connected to the earth, because ultimately we are all of this earth, and in becoming connected to the earth and to the waters, we are more likely to want to protect those for future generations,” she says. “It is a form of expression of who I am that also, at its fundamental core, relates to all of us as human beings, who are living on this planet with other beings who deserve to have a clean environment.”

Her art is held in prominent public art galleries, museums and by collectors from all over the world.