Beth Frey is a Canadian artist who works in drawing, painting, video, sculpture and installation, with a wry, absurdist sense of humour.,,Her layered watercolours form a colourful world that blurs the beautiful and the grotesque and often includes representations of herself. She extends that world with smartphone apps and AI image-generation tools.,
Frey holds a BFA from the University of Victoria and an MFA in painting and drawing from Concordia University.She is based in Montreal and Mexico City.Her watercolours are inhabited by fleshy creatures with morphed bodies.Body distortion, her own included, is an important part of the work, which she calls “light body horror”.
After discovering the AI tool DALL-E, Frey used it to extend her painting practice.Her project Sentient Muppet Factory uses AI to generate absurdist film stills, imagined as a late 1970s variety show. The images were generated from a bank of source images, mostly early NightCafe pieces and a few studio photos of herself.The Instagram account devoted to the work passed 100,000 followers.Fellowship presented Sentient Muppet Factory in July 2023.
Frey has exhibited in solo shows in Canada, the US, Mexico and the UK. Her group exhibitions include Museo Cabañas in Guadalajara and the Dowse Art Museum in Lower Hutt. Her collaborations with the experimental voice collective Phth were part of the 2024 FEMSA Biennale in Guanajuato and the 2025 Festival Montréal/Nouvelles Musiques.
