ART GALLERY OF REGINA

Beast Friends Forever Audio Tour Transcript

 

Thank you for visiting the Art Gallery of Regina to experience the exhibition Beast Friends Forever, curated by Sandee Moore, running from July 17 to September 17, 2026. In this exhibition, artists Bruce Anderson, Joanne Bristol, Mackenzie Kelly-Frère, Jeff Meldrum and Adrian Stimson explore the range of relationships humans have with other animals.

Before entering the gallery, you may wish to use the coat rack in our welcome area or set large bags inside the gallery doors to avoid damaging artworks. Although most artworks are not meant to be touched, there is a small textile by Mackenzie Kelly-Frere on a plinth that you can gently touch with clean hands and examine closely to see how the artist created it. There is also a copy of Jeff Medrum’s book, Art For Animals, available for reading in the gallery. Please ask the gallery staff if you’d like to purchase your own copy of this book; we have a limited number available for $20.

Please help yourself to sensory tools for use in the gallery from the baskets under the table at our entrance wall. There are earmuffs for those sensitive to sound, dark glasses for people with light sensitivity and fidget toys for those who wish to keep their hands busy. Please return these items on your way out. And feel free to visit during our low-sensory hours: Tuesday evenings from 5 to 7.

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Photos are permitted. If you post pictures from our exhibition, tag the Art Gallery of Regina and the artists.

 

GENERAL GALLERY LAYOUT
We have divided our gallery space with three movable walls on wheels. Please don’t lean against gallery walls: they are easily marked, and we want to protect artworks from damage by being brushed against. We also want to keep you safe, so please don’t walk in front of the video projector, where low lighting and equipment could pose a tripping hazard. We have soft upholstered benches and chairs in the gallery where visitors can rest.

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Please ask the gallery staff if you would like assistance navigating our gallery, as the layout changes with each exhibition.

I’m Sandee Moore, Beast Friends Forever curator.

Likely, the first thing you’ll see upon entering the gallery is a wall with a table that holds helpful items and gallery information, including self-guided tour pamphlets. This wall is where we usually hang the exhibition didactic panel. Didactic means intended to teach; a didactic panel includes information that helps visitors understand an exhibition. This didactic panel consists of the artists’ names, the exhibition dates and title, Beast Friends Forever, and a short introduction I wrote for this show.

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TITLE
When we say, “best friends forever,” it’s a phrase that lingers between passionate longing and the understanding that it is a promise destined to be broken.

With the insertion of a single letter, we expand this relationship. Beast Friends Forever reveals how relationships—shaped by culture, consumption, mythology, daily life, and survival —are both deeply meaningful and fragile. Do the distinctions we make between “human” and “animal” merely mask the impermanence, interdependence, and complexity at the core of all relationships?

We’ll start the tour by going to the left after entering the gallery, beginning with a series of large paintings by Regina artist Bruce Anderson.

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BRUCE ANDERSON
The first three—Mexican Tack, For Want of Towns, and Island in the Sun—are part of his Continental Drift series.

These monumental canvases, each measuring four feet by six feet, dwarf most viewers and command the space. While not as large as an actual horse, their size evokes a sense of awe, making us feel small in the presence of these powerful animals.

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Mexican Tack features two horses Bruce observed on a beach in Mexico. Their rich chestnut coats, distinctive markings, and intricate tack—saddles, stirrups, and bridles—are painted with meticulous detail.

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To Bruce, these aren’t just generic horses; they are individuals, and his paintings are portraits. The large scale helps us see all of these important details, showing us the horse’s glossy coats, stretched over taut muscles, bulging blood vessels, and rib and ankle bones. We can sense the different textures of the mane, tail, and muzzle by the way the artist has painted them.

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Scale is central to Anderson’s message. By depicting horses at such a large scale, he emphasizes their physical strength as well as their importance to human civilizations.

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These horses look serene, even bored, as if they spend a lot of time waiting, perhaps in the beating sun. They stand not on the Earth or the ground as we think of it, but on the ground composed of a fragment of an early map of the Americas. If you look at the top-left corner, you can see the letters FORNIA for California, and below one of the horses' muzzles, you may see the word Panama, as well as Spanish names for places and bodies of water.

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Notably, the maps beneath the horses are not accurate representations of geography as we know it today. Anderson shows how the partnership with horses allowed humans to move rapidly across oceans and continents, shrinking vast landscapes to the scale of a map—abstracting the land to shape it into a concept and a commodity, stripped of its living inhabitants.

The earthy russet and grey dappled hides of the horses contrast with the muted, time-faded maps and luminous turquoise and teal brushstrokes representing water. The abstraction of land and water on these maps reminds us that what is represented is not the land itself but a strategic perspective on it as empty and lifeless.

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The second painting, For Want of Towns, may reference Jonathan Swift’s critique of early mapmakers who filled “empty” spaces with animals. The title challenges the European view that lands were empty before colonization. Expansion and extraction of resources from these lands was made palatable by accounts, including maps, that erased the presence of Indigenous people and other beings. A pregnant mare dominates the canvas, her belly sagging across a map that curves to depict the North Pole and the limits of the earth. Perhaps what is being born here is not just a foal, but a new culture or nation or a new perspective on the globe. Here, titles offer vital clues to the artist’s intended meaning.

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In the next painting, the same mare is depicted with her young foal suckling at her side, rebirth and care counterbalancing narratives of power and empire-building.

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Continuing past the exit door, you’ll find two additional large canvases: Manifest and It Came to Pass. The title Manifest might allude to the phrase “manifest destiny”—a 19th-century belief that the United States was divinely ordained to expand westward across North America, rooted in ideas of racial superiority and entitlement to the land. However, there is a clear indication that these maps, marked with Cyrillic script and dotted travel routes, portray a different area of the world and a different narrative of conquest.

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These paintings differ visually as well: the land is painted in sunbaked terra-cotta, the water in choppy Mediterranean turquoise. Instead of single or paired horses, we see groups.

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Although these maps depict a European incursion into this area much earlier, they can also make us think of mid-twentieth-century history and the USSR's attempts to expand its territory into what we now refer to as the Middle East. These maps present a worldview shaped by European expansion.

I believe that these maps portray the area around Jerusalem during the Crusades, a series of military campaigns launched by the Catholic Church between 1095 and 1291. Christians from Europe waged several wars to gain control of this area, which they considered their “Holy Land.”

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During the Crusades, horses were indispensable to warfare: they enabled knights and fighters to move swiftly across great distances and gave mounted cavalry the power to break through defensive lines. Many horse breeds that exist today trace their origins to this period, having been bred for specific purposes—powerful destriers that could charge through opposing armies, sturdy and comfortable mounts (palfrey) for knights travelling long distances from Europe to Jerusalem, and robust pack horses to carry essential supplies.

Throughout, Bruce’s paintings evoke the mythic centaur—blending human and horse—and explore how this partnership enabled feats of exploration, conquest, and colonization. The horses stride across abstracted maps, emphasizing how their partnership with humans shaped ambition and history. The paintings capture both the muscle and identity of each animal, reminding us of our own smallness beside such beings—yet also hinting at the uplifting power of interspecies relationship.

JEFF MELDRUM
If we turn once again to the right, we’ll come to a series of photographs and a sculpture by artist and provincial park ecologist Jeff Meldrum on the gallery's moveable wall.

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There are three photographs measuring 26 x 20“ framed in light natural wood and contained by a white mat. These photographs are deep within the woods. There are evergreen trees all around, and the forest floor is covered with many green plants. There are two small black bears in these photographs, and a larger one, likely the mother. As you move from one photograph to the next, you will notice that the bears are all clustered around a white object.

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In the next photograph, some of the bears have dropped to the ground. We can see that this white object is Jeff's sculpture on this wall.

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You can continue along this wall to see the actual sculpture Jeff placed in the wilderness for bears: an oversized, replica cheque. Crafted from a large, rectangular piece of plywood, the cheque is painted white and lettered with felt-tip pen and acrylic paint to mimic the appearance of a re al cheque. It features familiar elements such as “pay to the order of,” a designated “artist fee” as payment, a space for the dollar amount, a memo line, and Jeff’s signature.

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However, this cheque also includes unexpected details. The recipient is listed as “unknown artist,” and the memo line simply reads “lard.” At the very bottom, Jeff has included a coded joke in the string of numbers and letters that would typically represent bank account information. Take a closer look—you might be able to decipher his playful message.

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Jeff wanted the cheque displayed much as he had suspended it in the forest. Here, we’ve hung it from a bracket, making it resemble a sign outside a shop. Notice that it’s not bright white or pristine—its surface bears the marks of exposure and use. There are marks from having been outside and from the lard that the artist spread all over the sculpture and which was then licked off by many bears.

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The three photos and the wooden cheque are all called Compensation. Compensation can mean payment for work done, or it might mean making up for a lack or harm done.

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This causes me to wonder, ‘What work have the bears or “unknown artists” done for Jeff, or what is he making compensation for?’ Jeff notes that “Artwork For Animals is able to pose questions rather than provide definitive answers.”

 

Compensation invites us to consider broader questions of value. The replica cheque is coated in lard—a substance far more meaningful to bears than the currency the fake cheque represents. It’s a valuable source of energy and fat to carry bears through the winter, so necessary to their survival. Further, Compensation urges us to consider how we should measure the worth of artwork (the cheque sculpture) or of money itself.

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With his Art for Animals projects, Jeff raises still more questions. By creating works meant not for human audiences but to attract and reward wildlife, he reimagines the very purpose of art. In doing so, he challenges us to imagine an aesthetic that extends beyond the human, one that can be experienced through senses like smell and taste.

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There’s a big black armchair and a yellow book on a pedestal next to the armchair. This is a book Jeff made that gathers all of his artwork for animals’ projects, and it’s called Art for Animals. Toward the back of this book, you’ll see another project by Jeff called Red Sculpture. Like many books, you’ll find some answers in this book, including to my earlier question “what work have the bears done for Jeff?” Bears may be the “Unknown Artist” the artist fee cheque is made out to.

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Jeff writes, “if bears were willing to become ‘engaged viewers,’ with Compensation, then he would consider them collaborators in creating ‘a highly anticipated performance.’” He goes on to write that, “the sculptural collaboration with the bears is not going as smoothly as I expected; perhaps I should not have been so naïve as to expect their interest in the sculpture would be as great as their interest in the artist's fee, large check.” He draws an analogy between the bears’ lack of interest and human audiences who lose interest in inaccessible artwork and ideas that are hard to understand.

While creatures may not consider the artist's modernist sculpture “passé,” this artwork may not speak to their notions of aesthetics that provide real, rewarding sensations. To make art for and with a bear, Jeff put the sculptural elements in the forest. The bear would move them around, then the human artist would move them around back and forth. Jeff created the giant cheque you see here in recognition of this labour.  However, Jeff knows that the currency the check represents is of no value to the bear. Where is the Lard? He coated the cheque with lard, which does have real value for bears, as it helps them gain weight and sustain them through the winter.

Jeff understands that we can’t assume that animals' experiences, including their experiences of artwork, will mirror our own. But finds considering other-than-human perspectives useful for questioning social convention; through his projects, we can shift our perspectives on the world to see it through the eyes (or noses or taste buds) of more-than-human beings.

I ncourage you to have a seat and look through Jeff’s Art For Animals book. Jeff has placed many artworks in remote wilderness areas for non-human animals to interact with. If you would like to acquire your own copy, the gallery has limited copies available for purchase for $20 plus PST.

JOANNE BRISTOL
If you follow the edge of the movable wall toward the gallery’s back wall, you’ll discover a long, narrow space set apart by a floor-to-ceiling black curtain—like a snug, dark burrow. Here, an animated video or a video sketchbook by Joanne Bristol invites you to sit on the bench and watch a projection deliberately cast onto the wall facing McTavish Street, grounding the work in the very neighbourhood it depicts.

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Joanne’s practice is rooted in a deep connection to the natural world and explores the intricate relationships between humans and their environments. Her video, desire lines, was created during her years living on McTavish Street, just blocks from the AGR. Sparse line drawings evoke the bleakness of early spring, as urban critters animate a shadow city of non-humans. The video effectively dissolves the gallery wall to expose McTavish Street’s alleys lined with trucks and trash bins, utility covers dotting the asphalt, and glimpses of squirrels, birds, and insects.

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desire lines makes use of the elements of art “line” and “colour,” or, in fact, a restricted palette or limited colour to create a sense of directness and intimacy. Spare black lines on a white page feel quiet and calm, like bare tree branches dark against the city sky in early spring.

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Joanne’s framing of her animated video as a sketchbook highlights its observational and episodic nature. During the Italian Renaissance (1400s and 1500s), drawing was considered the highest form of art. In swift and spontaneous lines, it was believed that viewers could access the artist’s thoughts and creative process. The elegant spareness and harmony of her sketches and cursive writing from her video sketchbook invite us to appreciate the undesirable, unpicturesque and unseen corners of our cities and houses, from the pitted texture of basement walls to the shadowy interior of a sewer pipe glimpsed via inspection camera.

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The title, desire lines, refers to the paths carved by living beings as they seek their own routes across a landscape. This concept links Joanne's work to Jeff Meldrum’s trail camera photographs. In forests, where wild creatures encounter Jeff’s sculptures, their movements—driven by basic needs—wear paths into the land. Similarly, in cities, people and animals subvert the imposed grid of streets and fences, leaving behind traces of their travels, guided by wants and needs.

As one sketch gives way to the next, wants, needs, fears, and judgments ebb and flow—sometimes merging, sometimes fading into the background. Seemingly mundane tasks—pulling dandelions or removing tree roots from pipes—take on new meaning as Joanne records them in her sketchbook. She describes trees as conduits for squirrels and vectors for cankerworms, and she is intrigued by the subtle, winding line that separates “pet” from “pest.” Rather than gloss over moments of conflict with other species, Joanne reflects honestly on these encounters, considering how to share the human-built environment with other beings and cultivating an awareness of the land itself as alive. In documenting these daily experiences and questions, her sketchbook embraces complexity, resisting any single, easy perspective on what it means to live among other living beings.

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When the movement of the train shakes the ground on both sides of the track, she wonders “what kind of movement or touch does the ground want?” She observes sparrows bathing in the dirt, flapping their wings and massaging the Earth.

Relationships of kindness and beauty are balanced by those of attempting to eradicate invasive plants or worrying about insects that could be chewing up the house, causing it to disintegrate around the humans who occupy it. Our relationships with other living beings are complex, guided by our desires and their desires, which may be at odds.

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ADRIAN STIMSON
Moving on from Joanne’s desire lines, we encounter two large paintings in oil, graphite, and charcoal by Adrian Stimson, displayed along the gallery’s back wall. The first, positioned near the video den, is Manifest Buffalo: Bison Dream Past 10, on loan from the University of Saskatchewan—who received it as a gift from the artist in 2023.

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Adrian is a Siksika artist. The Siksika Nation, an Indigenous First Nation in Alberta, takes its name from the Blackfoot language: "sik" for black and "iká" for foot. For Adrian, painting bison is both an act of remembrance and a tribute to the enduring relationship between the Siksika people and this once-plentiful species.

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Adrian’s paintings, much like Joanne’s line-drawn video, are nearly monochromatic—dominated by whites, greys, and blacks. This restricted palette strengthens his message of loss and memory.

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In Manifest Buffalo: Bison Dream Past 10, the bison is rendered with bold strokes of rich, earthy tones reminiscent of those Bruce used to paint his horses. This contrast accentuates the bison’s significance, while all else fades away.

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While creating these works is, for Adrian, a process of remembrance and homage to the profound connection between his people and the bison, these paintings are also intended to prompt viewers to reflect on the deep connection between humans and animals—how bison once provided spiritual and physical sustenance to the Siksika through their meat and hides. This relationship is (was) one of the greatest intimacies: consuming the animals’ flesh, which becomes part of one’s body, and wearing their hides for warmth and protection. Adrian’s paintings are meditations on the intertwined histories of the Siksika and the 30 to 60 million bison that once roamed the plains before their near-eradication in the late 1800s.

The spiritual connection Adrian forges when he paints a bison is evident. The predominantly white and grey tones lend his paintings a dreamlike, sombre quality—reflecting both the loss and continued significance of these animals for Adrian and his community.

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The second painting, Bison Heart VI, is even larger, measuring 4’ x 4’. The bison is depicted smaller–adrift in a vast expanse of emptiness—white and cream, with swirling grey lines evoking snowdrifts or clouds of memory. The bison’s smallness within this inhospitable, empty expanse emphasizes its solitude. Bison Heart VI reminds us that where once there were immense herds spanning the plains for days, these beasts now persist only in greatly diminished numbers, as livestock or confined to managed conservation lands. And their role sustaining human life on the grasslands - a rapidly fading memory.

MACKENZIE KELLY-FRERE
If we turn right to look at the other gallery wall, you’ll see three large photographs adhered directly to the wall by artist Mackenzie Kelly-Frère. These images show his textile Shelter/In plain sight—a shaggy-pile cloak woven to replicate sheepskin—worn and camouflaged in natural settings.

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On a pedestal near the photographs is a maquette, or miniature version of the cloak, which allowed the artist to test materials and techniques before creating the full-scale work. You are welcome to touch and examine this model of the cloak in the photographs. You can turn it over to see how the long, curling locks of wool are woven to replicate the pattern of grasses or turf the artist saw in Iceland. You can feel the springy, scratchy texture of the raw wool and the lightness of the cloth woven from it.

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Mackenzie created Shelter/In plain sight at an artist’s residency in Iceland. The shaggy-pile cloak was modelled on a textile fragment found in a 1000-year-old  grave of a female Viking settler in Iceland. The artist used historically authentic techniques, including a loom where the threads were weighted with rocks to weave this  cloak.

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He also wove a story of migration and connection to place into the textile by using sheep's wool sourced from both Iceland and Treaty Seven territory. These materials not only pay homage to the origins of the Viking cloak and the lands where the artist lives, but also echo journeys across oceans—of both Vikings settling new lands and the artist’s family history of migration, similar to many folks who live in what we call Canada.

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Shelter/In plain sight also proposes that we are part of the lands we inhabit, and that relationships with animals have long enabled human survival. For instance, it's not surprising that humans have been harvesting and mimicking the qualities of sheep fleece for an estimated 10 to 12 thousand years. The water-resistance of long, lanolin-rich tresses of sheepskins protected Vikings from biting winds and chilling dew on seafaring journeys and inhospitable environments. Human technologies of weaving improved upon these natural qualities, making the cloak windproof and water-repellent.

Mackenzie’s work reminds us that shelter and belonging can arise from merging with the natural world and reminds us that humans have long learned from and relied on other species.

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Beast Friends Forever marks the first time Mackenzie has exhibited photographs of Shelter/In plain sight. When you look at these images, you will see the cloak reposing amongst long grasses, sheltering in the curve of a lichen-covered rock, blending into the dappled surfaces and dancing with the tall grasses. Or, as the title of this artwork suggests, sheltering in plain sight. A figure emerges from its extravagantly coiled wool, appearing neither wholly human nor animal, occupying a space between human and animal, echoing our ongoing desire to learn survival, camouflage, and adaptation from the creatures around us.

 

JEFF MELDRUM
As you approach the gallery door to exit, you’ll notice three additional works by Jeff Meldrum displayed on the movable wall near the entrance. Two of these - the photographs  Pink Tree 2 and Yellow Tree 2- are on the side of the wall facing into the gallery. Three unframed photographs, collectively titled Tools for Beavers, are on the side facing the door.

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Let’s begin by looking at the framed photographs Pink Tree 2 and Yellow Tree 2. Jeff takes his photographs with a Cabela’s trail camera. While Cabela’s is known as a hunting retailer, Jeff reimagines the hunter’s tools for artistic purposes, using them to create art and foster connections with non-human animals. By placing objects in the forest and documenting animal interactions, he transforms tools typically used for hunting into instruments for peaceful, creative engagement.

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Pink Tree 2 and Yellow Tree 2 feature upright tree trunks with bark but no living branches; instead, Jeff has added new branches made from brightly painted recycled wood. These altered trees may offer practical benefits for animals—such as scratching posts—or simply blend into the forest landscape like any other tree. Much like forest-dwelling creatures, Jeff has assembled his work from human garbage and forest debris, inviting us to reflect on the mysterious structures created by non-human animals.

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On the other side of this wall, to the right of the didactic panel, you’ll find Tools for Beavers (2022). The top image shows slow-moving brown water behind a beaver dam, with a stream winding into the distance, framed by overhanging trees. Atop the dam, Jeff has placed replica tools—a ladder, cinderblocks, a painted wood form, and a marked wooden stick—to see how beavers might use them.

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The middle photograph is a collage of images from a trail camera, documenting how these tools gradually became incorporated into the dam. These photos also reveal the dam’s role as a wildlife corridor, traversed by beavers, raccoons, bears, coyotes, herons, and otters. This monumental structure serves as a pathway, a platform for hunting and fishing, and a catalyst for the growth of shoreline plants—demonstrating how beaver engineering meets the needs of many species and suggesting that their constructions could be works of creativity and aesthetic satisfaction. Each of these images is watermarked at the bottom edge with the Cabela’s logo and the time and temperature at which the photograph was taken.

 

The bottom photograph is taken from water level, showing the dam holding back a broad, calm pool. Amid the jumble of logs and debris, you can spot the objects Jeff placed—like the painted wood form and marked stick—now incorporated into the dam. The use of tools has often been considered a uniquely human trait, much like the creation of art. With Tools for Beavers, the artist challenges this idea, suggesting that the boundaries we draw between humans and other animals are artificial. The beavers interacted with the replica tools, but used them solely for the dam’s essential purpose: holding back water.

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There’s one more of Jeff’s sculptures you won’t see inside the gallery—it’s in the building’s courtyard: Sculpture for Squirrels. This unnaturally neon-coloured tree sculpture serves as a focal point for the daily feeding ritual between human and squirrel. This site-specific work is activated by the building administrator, highlighting the ongoing relationship with the resident squirrel.

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Unlike Bruce Anderson’s monumental canvases, which can make viewers feel small, Jeff’s tiny Sculpture for Squirrels elevates its intended audience—the squirrel—by presenting art at squirrel-scale. Compared to the replica trees he made in the forest for elk and bears, this tree is minuscule - about a foot high. Like any work of art, Sculpture for Squirrels doesn’t replace a tree’s practical function for a squirrel but singles this insignificant critter out for attention, signalling the squirrel's importance to this building with a bespoke creation.

Thank you for visiting the Art Gallery of Regina to see the group exhibition Beast Friends Forever.

As Director/Curator at the AGR, I’m pleased to be part of this organization that, for over 50 years, has fulfilled its mandate to foster appreciation for contemporary art and share artworks through thoughtfully curated exhibitions that provide new ways to understand issues in our society. Founded in 1974 in response to a lack of exhibition opportunities for local artists and other excluded artists and practices, the AGR continues to support community-engaged and participatory artworks, emerging art forms, and fresh takes on familiar practices and subjects.

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Accessibility, inclusivity, and community infuse all AGR activities. I thank the City of Regina’s Adapted Recreation grants program for funding our Accessible Gallery Tours project, offered and developed in consultation with Listen to Dis’, a disability arts organization based in Regina.

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I also thank Casino Regina for supporting our efforts to meaningfully connect exhibitions with Indigenous experiences and knowledge.

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I would like to thank our core funders, SK-Arts and the City of Regina, through their Professional Arts Organization Grant programs and Community Partner Grant programs, respectively. I am also pleased to acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.

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I am delighted to recognize SaskTel for making this audio tour possible through their sponsorship, which connects people to art experiences through communications technology.

 

We’ve recently started sharing artwork analysis videos of our exhibitions on TikTok. Follow us there to experience our shows in a new way and stay connected with the latest from the AGR.

I especially thank YOU for taking the time to listen to this audio tour

and attend this exhibition.

You can support the Art Gallery of Regina by becoming a member, donating, or both.

Visit our website at www.artgalleryofregina.ca for details on becoming part of our gallery’s community, including low-barrier exhibition opportunities for members, and more about Beast Friends Forever, including exhibition documentation photos, discursive materials and links to media appearances and stories, including Joanne Bristol’s interview on CBC radio.

Join us on Saturday, September 12 to celebrate artists Bruce Anderson, Joanne Bristol, Mackenzie Kelly-Frère, Jeff Meldrum and Adrian Stimson and the closing of Beast Friends Forever.

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I invite people of all ages to return to the gallery in September and October to consider the role of fashion in our lives, helping us craft and broadcast our identities, connecting us to culture and providing beauty and sheltering our bodies. The AGR will present free Culture Days activities from September 18 to October 4. We are grateful to SaskCulture, funded by SaskLotteries, for allowing us to offer these free experiences.