Rural Roots by Annette Henderson, Haylee Janai, Lee Beaton
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY - Haylee Janai is a detail-oriented multimedia emerging artist based in Brandon, Manitoba. Working across drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, and pyrography, her practice is grounded in a deep respect for craftsmanship and the physical presence of the artist’s hand. She is currently completing a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) at Brandon University, with graduation anticipated in May 2026. Born in 2003 and raised in a rural community she belongs to a generation shaped equally by tactile making and digital environments, a duality that strongly informs her artistic approach. By prioritizing physical engagement with materials, Janai invites viewers to reflect on their own relationship to objects, images, and systems of production. Her work encourages a renewed appreciation for the handmade, positioning traditional and emerging practices not as opposites, but as sites of meaningful conversation within contemporary art. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and community spaces across Manitoba, including the Glen P. Sutherland Gallery of Art, Wasagaming Community Arts, the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba, and the Eagleridge Gallery in Winnipeg. In 2023, her work was shortlisted in the Manitoba Society of Artists’ 91st Provincial Open Juried Competition and Exhibition. In addition to her studio practice, Janai is active in curatorial and educational contexts. She co-curated Barrier, Breach, Scaffold (2025) with Lucie Lederhendler at the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba and Indigenous Art Beyond History (2024) with Dr. Stacey Koosel at the Glen P. Sutherland Gallery of Art. Her teaching experience includes leading youth and teen workshops focused on experimental and interdisciplinary art-making. Janai has received numerous awards and scholarships in recognition of her artistic and academic excellence, including support from the Manitoba Arts Council for her thesis exhibition, the Manitoba Society of Artists, and multiple institutional bursaries and honour awards. She has also worked as an Art Gallery and Studio Assistant at the Glen P. Sutherland Gallery of Art and as a Curatorial Assistant at the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba.
Biography- Annette Henderson Feb. 8, 2026 Annette Henderson is a mixed-media collage artist currently enrolled in the Fine Arts program at the Brandon University, majoring in Ceramics. Growing up on a dairy farm near St. Claude, MB, detritus and abandoned farm equipment inspire her to see more deeply, giving new life to found objects, always entertaining her audience. She is currently focusing on her studies and experimenting with wild clay, testing and creating works. Annette’s work has been featured in the Entomological Societies of Manitoba and Canada (2002, Winnipeg), Survivability (2012 Mentoring Art for Women’s Art, Winnipeg, and 2014, Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba, Brandom), More than Just the Art (2015, Manitoba Arts Network), organized by Pauline Braun and Audrey J. Lute, Between IV (2018, Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba), Drawing Truth Erasing Stigma:Understanding Mental Health (2018, Glen P. Sutherland Gallery of Art, Brandon), and Earth & Fire, solo exhibition, (2019, Portage & District Art Centre). Concurrent (student show) (2025, Glen P. Sutherland Gallery of Art, Brandon) Annette’s work has been selected for exhibitions in Central Region Juried Art Exhibition (CRJAE), and Manitoba Arts Network Manitoba Rural Northern Juried Art Show (MRNJAS) held in Manitoba. Annette was mentored by Pauline Braun of Winnipeg, Anne Fallis of Carberry, and Barb Flemington of Brandon, MB. Her work can be found in the Manitoba Government Art Collection and in private collections. Annette maintains her art practice from her home studio near Rathwell, MB.
Lee Beaton Biography Portage la Prairie Lee Beaton, a multi-disciplinary visual artist based in Portage la Prairie, MB. Is pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts Honours Degree at Brandon University (Graduating May 2026). Beaton works full-time as the Manager of Gallery Operations at Prairie Fusion Arts & Entertainment, an art gallery and theatre. Lee had several solo exhibitions, including three gallery exhibitions of 1000 Faces Hidden Within. Gala Fundraiser Paintings at Prairie Fusion Arts & Entertainment and Wide Open Spaces, 2021 in Winnipeg at Cre8ery Gallery & Studio and in Hamiota in 2022. Life’s Journey: Persistence & Recovery at Prairie Fusion Arts & Entertainment in 2024 and Moments in Time at 210 Gallery in Winnipeg in 2025. She has participated in numerous group exhibits at several galleries including Between IV, at the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba in Brandon in 2018. In 2019, the Community Foundation of Portage and District commissioned her to create fifty unique conceptual paintings of their logo. Lee was named Portage la Prairie’s Arts and Cultural Person of the Year in 2017.
Artist Statement
ARTIST STATEMENT – Haylee I was born into a plugged-in world, raised entirely in the shadow of rapid technological change. While older generations can point to a “before,” I cannot. I grew up with technology as my playground, teacher, entertainment, and escape, offering speed, connection, and efficiency. In doing so, it also quietly erodes purpose, identity, motor, and sensory intelligence. In contrast, my rural, craft-centred upbringing taught me many skills, and that handmade objects bear the marks of time and human touch, holding a permanence and meaning absent from automated, mass-produced disposability. As technology progresses, many traditional skills and objects have become outdated, overshadowed by a culture of planned obsolescence and constant innovation. The Nightingale I–IV series draws directly from my lived experience to express the unease I have with a world that moves too quickly to allow for slowness, touch, and the continued use of our hands. I use this foundation to build a conversation between the past, present, and the viable future. What began as a celebration of invention becomes a quiet warning about the futures we are building, and whether they will serve or consume us. My work calls for a more considered approach to the tools and technologies we use day to day, positioning them to enhance skills already learned rather than replace the learning process itself. The piece Self Portrait furthers this idea by acknowledging that I do not want to reject technology, it is too much a part of me, but instead examine it through a critical lens. This piece presents many automated and manual tools used, as well as conceptual references and influences that shaped my work. After adopting this critical lens, I realized the contrast between our hands and technology lies in the process. Manual Override frames the hand as a fail-safe, the last thing we can rely on when systems disconnect us from meaning, while emphasizing the importance of process, by showing the steps to creating my sculptures. I use cyanotype to capture the index of touch directly onto ceramic surfaces, merging one of the earliest photographic processes with a material known for its durability and permanence. Cyanotype, now largely obsolete due to modern imaging technologies, becomes a conceptual counterpoint to contemporary modes of image-making when applied to clay, a medium capable of outlasting its maker. My work consists primarily of hollowed-out sculptures that embrace the inherent imperfections of hand-built ceramics, allowing each piece to record the marks of my touch and immortalize the physical process of making. In our rush to embrace convenience and speed, what have we sacrificed? What meaning can we derive from the things we make when those things no longer depend on our hands? These questions compel us to reflect on what it means to remain meaningfully human in an increasingly automated world. As machines assume tasks once bound to human experience, we are left to wonder whether the human hand stands on the brink of obsolescence.
Annette - Beneath My Feet Today, most potters source their clays commercially; however, this convenience has negative environmental and economic consequences. Clays are mined in various countries, which causes environmental degradation, pollution, and also incurs expensive manufacturing and shipping costs. In addition, the lack of potters’ hands-on experience collecting organic products and experimenting with them results in a loss of connection to the natural world and diminishes curiosity. I choose to source natural clays as it deepens my connection to the natural landscape and to my own family, farmers who broke and worked the land. Clay is everywhere. Foraging for wild clays allows me to connect with my environment and respond to the location from which it was sourced. I enjoy prospecting clay: the hunting and digging involved in finding various types in prairie fields and along riverbanks. Processing wild clay by washing and filtering it using rainwater is incredibly primal, and I feel it connects me to those who came before me. Working with wild clays forces me to slow down and be patient, to listen more and require less. My work investigates Manitoba’s wild clays, their unique colors, characteristics, and processing requirements. Soluble salts, and organic and mineral impurities lend themselves to imperfections that reflect our geological and prairie environment. I derive great pleasure from converting dirt to a silky-smooth bucket of sludge, to a plasterboard, and finally into a smooth lump. Ascertaining the difficulty or resistance of particular clays through testing and studies is challenging but exciting. Testing different clays’ tolerance to different kiln temperatures and viewing the resulting characteristics determines how I will use them. For myself, these explorations lend to interweaving art and science and give me freedom and joy to play.
Lee Beaton Artist Statement This body of work features early childhood memories that have resurfaced, and we have reimagined into new ceramic vessels. Often fragmented or distorted, memories are buried in the subconscious until recalled. The teapot is a powerful symbol of slowing down, conversation, and imagination. Childhood memories of my grandmother’s musical teapot, displayed prominently in her china cabinet informs the conceptual foundation of this work. In the studio, fragments of memory are transformed into clay. The rhythmic motion of the pottery wheel becomes a meditative process, allowing memories to surface as the vessel forms. Once the teapot is assembled, sections are cut away, openings and embellishments are added. Underglaze is used to paint imagery from the subconscious onto both the interior and exterior surfaces. Glazing completes the piece, allowing the object to function simultaneously as a teapot and a narrative container. In The Trees, interior and exterior views intersect, creating a visual tension that encourages viewers to recall their own memories. Small sculptural elements and found objects such as trees, cows, and farm objects are reminders of farm life in the 1960s. Through these vessels, personal history and shared experiences are intertwined, inviting viewers to be transported to a different time and place through their own remembered moments.