Aquarelle sur papier, 2025
This piece is from my 2025 Self-portrait series. The image bears no likeness to me. Instead, I use the self-portrait as a conceptual framework; by identifying the piece as such, it becomes rendered as a performance. After early AI experiments went viral in 2022, my sense of identity as an artist was disrupted, prompting me to explore the unstable relationship between creator and created. Each watercolour begins with a blind- contour drawing, celebrating imperfection and gesture. These works are then integrated with my face and body through video-collage, allowing me to insert myself into the world I create.
Beth Frey works with a variety of media, including drawing, painting, video, and installation. Through her wry, absurdist sense of humour, Frey playfully draws out contradictions in her subject matter, blurring the beautiful and the grotesque, the innocent and the perverse, often integrating representations of herself into her chromatic cartoon-like world. Working from her complexly layered watercolours, Frey incorporates accessible smartphone apps to expand this universe and bring her body into it as an active player.
Frey has an MFA in painting and drawing from Concordia University and a BFA from the University of Victoria. Recent solo exhibitions include McBride Contemporain (Montréal), mother’s tankstation (London, UK), and Galeria Pamela Weissenberg (Mexico City). Her collaboration with the experimental voice collective Phth was performed at the SAT in 2025 and will be transformed into an upcoming exhibition at DRAC in Drummondville. Frey currently divides her time between Montréal and Mexico City.