Christi Belcourt’s “The Great Mystery of Water” for Style Imitating Art

Hello and welcome to my third selection of Style Imitating Art for the year!

Style Imitating Art

Style Imitating Art, at the moment, is hosted by Salazar of 14 Shades of Grey, Shelbee of Shelbee on the Edge, and me.

Style Imitating Art challenges us to draw style inspiration from pieces of art. Every other Monday one of us selects an inspiration image and we each post the image on our blogs. The following Monday we share our art-inspired outfits. The following Wednesday, the curator shares all of the submissions on her blog.

This Week’s Presenter

Well, that would be me!

This Week’s Inspirational Image

Being “Earth Month”, I thought for a while about what type of image and artist I wanted. I chose Canadian Christi Belcourt a Métis visual artist. The majority of her work explores and celebrates the beauty of the natural world. Belcourt has created large, mural-sized acrylic paintings that resemble the beadwork of her ancestors and community, She accomplishes this by using her brush (or a needle-like tool) to make tiny dots that resemble traditional beadwork. Her paintings are filled with floral designs that include insects, birds, and other animals, spread out across the canvas. These are not just floral patterns or illustrations but works with meaning.

I first was going to use one of her glorious floral paintings influenced by Métis beadwork. However, they are extremely colorful so I thought I needed to reign in the color a bit. When I saw, The Great Mystery of Water, I knew this was the one.

The beadwork pointillism style can be seen in this work through the fish. She has chosen to use a more fluid paint stroke in depicting the water. Belcourt painted The Great Mystery of Water in 2016 in support of the Great Lakes.

I found a 2020 interview with Christi Belcourt talking about the importance of water in her culture and art. You can watch it HERE. She is interviewed about “Uprising: The Power of Mother Earth”, a mid-career retrospective of her work.

Also, notice the gorgeous work behind her. I believe it is “Wisdom of the Universe“, which was my original pick.

I hope everyone finds this work inspirational. She does such gorgeous work and one with a message.

Have Some Fun & Join Us

Go take a look in your closet and see what you have. Put something together and send it to me at meadowtreestyle@gmail.com by a week from tomorrow, April, 19th. I love getting those emails!

I think that’s it for now,

Happy Styling