Judy Anderson is a Nêhiyaw Cree artist from the Gordon First Nation in Saskatchewan, Canada, which is a Treaty 4 territory. Anderson is currently an Associate Professor of Canadian Indigenous Studio Art in the Department of Arts at the University of Calgary. Her artwork focuses on issues of spirituality, colonialism, family, and Indigeneity and she uses in her practice hand-made paper, beadwork, painting, and does collaborative projects, such as the ongoing collaboration with her son Cruz, where the pair combine traditional Indigenous methodologies and graffiti. Anderson has also been researching traditional European methods and materials of painting.
Career She holds a BA and a BFA from the University of Saskatchewan and an MFA from the University of Regina. Anderson was a faculty member at the First Nations University of Canada and the University of Regina. She was hired in 2017 by the University of Calgary to teach Studio and Indigenous Art History.
Anderson was the Founding director of Platteforum in 2002, a non profit arts organization geared toward educating the youth
Anderson works in painting, beadwork, augmented reality, and installation art. She focuses on issues of spirituality, family, graffiti and popular representations of Aboriginal people, all of which are created with the purpose of honoring the people in her life. Her work has been included in national projects remembering missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada.
She and her son Cruz Anderson work on glass beaded graffiti art on moose hide. The pair collaborated on a piece which honored Anderson's grandmother who was murdered when Judy was 12. Her pieces shed light on murdered and missing Indigenous peoples and was featured in an exhibit called "Walking with our Sisters" in 2013.
In 2014, Anderson was invited to teach at The Prince's School of Traditional Arts in London, England where she taught Prince Charles how to sew beads and porcupine quills on a moose hide.
Anderson's work is represented in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Canada.
Exhibitions Critical Faculties (Plain Red Gallery, First Nations University of Canada) 2012 The Synthetic Age (MacKenzie Art Gallery) 2013 Walking With Our Sisters (Plain Red Gallery, First Nations University of Canada) 2013 The Sole Project (The Art Gallery of Regina) 2016 Bead Speak (Slate Fine Art Gallery) 2016 Working Mom (Last Mountain Lake Gallery) 2017 Beading Now (La Guilde) 2019 Bead Speak 2.0 (Slate Gallery) 2020 BACA (Biennale d’art contemporain autochtone / Contemporary Native Art Biennial): Honouring Kinship (Art Mûr) 2020 Biennial of Contemporary Art (Remai Modern) 2020 The Radical Stitch (Mackenzie Art Gallery) 2022
Awards In 2016 Anderson received the Denver Art Museum Gold Key Award, awarded to only those who have made significant contributions to contemporary art in Colorado
In 2017, Anderson won the National Salt Spring Award
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