Barbara Safran de Niverville
2021-07-10 - 2021-08-21
Vanitas by the Sea / Vanitas par la merBarbara Safran de Niverville explores the vigour of growth where native plants and garden escapees mingle. Discarded domestic objects punctuate intricate vegetation that seems to hover in the dark ground. The title of the exhibition references the still life genre of painting popular during the Baroque period in western art history. Vanitas portray highly realistic, symbolic objects such as flowers, porcelain and silver dishes, fruits and vegetables. Together on a tabletop, the objects are a reminder to the viewer of the hubris of mankind and the inevitability of mortality. Barbara has reinterpreted this point of view recognizing in her work the subtle influence of the present pandemic and its parallels to the plagues in Europe during 17th and 18th centuries. She has chosen to include objects in her work that are worn with use, but seem to possess an aura of their past significance while the shadow land they now inhabit evokes the mysterious resilience of the uncultivated growth found between a beach and a forest – abandoned land that survives in spite of humanity’s seeming indifference.
“Using a combination of natural and synthetic materials, my mixed-media panels represent a metaphor for the hybrid quality of the natural world. I question our concept of wilderness and reveal the flux between Nature and Culture and the tension between growth and decline. My current work explores outcast and forgotten areas of landscape that retain traces of human use. Essential to my process is experimentation, through digital photography, drawing, and the testing of new combinations of art techniques with industrial products”.
Vanitas Vivace is a short experimental video based on the painting Vanitas Chicory, on exhibit with this series. Elements from the painting leave the panel’s surface, become air born and dance to an original soundtrack. Barbara’s husband Peter de Niverville animated the film with music composed by their daughter, Abigail de Niverville. It is available to be viewed on Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/568608152/bb5d5ef7f8
A Prix Éloize finalist in 2018, Barbara has exhibited landscapes across Canada in twenty-six solo shows and numerous group projects in the United States and Iceland. In 2014, she completed her Masters of Fine Arts degree at the Art Institute of Boston.

Isolated // Together
2021-07-24 - 2021-08-21
Curated by the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, fourteen New Brunswick artists have designed wearable facemasks as part of the project, Isolated // Together, commemorating the cultural impact of masks during this pandemic.

Currents
2021-08-28 - 2021-10-02
Deanna Musgrave and Amy Ash
The energy that passes through or between us, the memory of water, a pulse, a charge, a conduit, a body in motion, a cycle.
Currents links the recent work of Amy Ash and Deanna Musgrave through their shared interest in the poetics of water, memory and the unseen. Quiet explorations of biofields, sensation, and connection resonate from the works that comprise Currents. Watermarks and brushstrokes become tidelines, evidence of time and transformation brought on by an interaction of forces.
Through conduits of both representational form and abstract composition the artists encourage reflection, interaction, and personal change. Both Ash and Musgrave work fluidly between dedicated studio practices and social engagement. While Ash creates opportunities for collaboration and shared meaning-making as an act of collective care, Musgrave works with individuals through energy healing techniques.
Together, through diverse embodied methodologies, Ash and Musgrave hold space for connection, reparation, and transformation.
Amy Ash
Amy Ash is an interdisciplinary artist engaged with collective care through processes of shared meaning-making. Her practice flows from curatorial projects and writing to teach-ing, socially engaged action, and hands-on making. Blurring the lines between disciplines, they trace connectivity through the intersections and overlaps between memory, learning, and wonder, to incite curiosity. Amy has exhibited and curated programmes internationally, with projects commissioned by National Gallery London (UK), The NB International Sculpture Symposium (NB), Beaverbrook Art Gallery (NB), and Platform Centre for Photographic and Digital Arts (MB). She is an instructor with the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design, writes regularly for CreatedHere Magazine, Visual Arts News, and is a member of the International Associ-ation of Art Critics. Amy lives in Menahqesk/Menagoesg/Saint John, New Brunswick, with her wife Alex, along with their dog and cat. Of settler ancestry, they are a grateful guest on the unsurren-dered and unceded territory of the Wolastoqiyik, Mi’kmaq, and Peskotomuhkati peoples. www.amyash.ca @amy_ash_ Pronouns: She/They can be used interchangeably. I have no preference.
Deanna Musgrave
“Musgrave’s work has been a fixture in the Saint John and New Brunswick art community for over a decade. Her paintings are immediately recognizable; ethereal and vibrant, they encapsulate traits that many artists struggle to balance. They are objectively beautiful yet wrought with complex symbolism and capture a narrative while remaining vehemently abstract.” ~Christiana Myers, “Peer Review: The Best Art of 2018,” The East, December 2018

Deanna Musgrave is best known for her large-scale public artwork such as, “Cloud” (2015) and “Tropos” (2019) whichare both over 40’ wide and part of the collection of the University of New Brunswick. Her works inspire contemplation and are a response to her endless seeking of the unseen, metaphysical and mysterious.
Early on in her career, she was selected by the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in 2007 for the Studio Watch Award which aimed at introducing promising new artists to the public and later included in “Off the Grid: Abstract Art in New Brunswick” at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in 2014. Her work has been enthusiastically reviewed by the New Brunswick media, and she has won numerous grants and awards from the Canada Council for the Arts, New Brunswick Arts Board, Mount Allison University and the University of New Brunswick. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Mount Allison University (2005) and a Master of Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of New Brunswick (2019). Outside of her artmaking, she works in guidance through hypnosis, energy clearing and other mysterious practices to assist. She is based out of Menagoesg (Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada).
Artist Statement – Deanna Musgrave“For visual artist Deanna Musgrave, art and healing are interwoven. This is why, transformation is the crux of her work and the reason she found home in Saint John, [New Brunswick], a historic working-class city on the Bay of Fundy. This place possesses energy she describes as having “an ancient quality that brings together polarity.” It is polarities that inhabit Deanna’s vision. Her work is an interaction that seeks unity, exuding energy in the process, much like the current transformative renaissance happening here in the old port city.” (1)
“[Her] work has been a fixture in the Saint John and New Brunswick art community for over a decade. Her paintings are immediately recognizable; ethereal and vibrant, they encapsulate traits that many artists struggle to balance. They are objectively beautiful yet wrought with complex symbolism and capture a narrative while remaining vehemently abstract.” (2)
“Often working on the studio floor, using liquid paints to surround, unify and pool around areas of information, Musgrave succeeds in defying a traditional concept of perspective. Her compositions unfold almost three-dimensionally, enveloping the viewer with information from above, straight on and below.” (3)
“Water is the starting point for each of Musgrave’s works. With a blank canvas placed on the floor of her studio, she selects objects of significance: of sentimental, aesthetic, or symbolic meaning, to place on top of the canvas. She sprinkles, sprays, or pours water over the object to capture an impression of the form in pigment. The impression made by the water is like a memory of the object on the canvas.
Using water in the process is as important to Deanna as her subject matter. Her world view is closely tied to the power of water and its relationship to experience and memory. Deanna’s work considers and articulates the theories of homeopathy: the ability of water to remember substances once mixed in it; cymatics: the patterns formed when a substance like water or sand is vibrated; and akashic field theory: the theory that information can exist and be transmitted through energy fields.
The result is a highly dynamic and fluid expression of memory, story, and a deep connection to water. Outside of her art, Deanna studies and practices dowsing: practiced since the 15th century to locate underground water systems. More recently dowsing has been adapted to locate areas of stress or trauma on the human body as a means of healing.”
All aspects of Deanna’s connection to water speak to a single idea: that information, knowledge, and experience can exist and be transmitted in many different ways. She believes that revolution can be ignited from person to person and that can happen in many different forms.” (4)

~Shannon Webb-Campbell, “Arts Higher State: The Vision and Practice of Deanna Musgrave, Created Here Magazine: Psyche, Volume 11, 2020.
~Christiana Myers, “Peer Review: The Best Art of 2018,” The East, December 2018
~Stephanie Buhmann, “New Brunswick Studio Conversations,” Billie Magazine V.2, Spring 2017
~Donna Wawzonek, “Deanna Musgrave: Stirring Large Conversations with Grande Impressions,” National Water Centre Blog

Artist Statement – Amy AshMemoryscape I, 2021:
Sometimes the important places in our lives can define us as much as the people with whom we find kinship. As much as we inhabit places, so do they hold a special spot, a resonance, within us. Specific landscapes, eco-systems, architecture, or townships can feel like a visceral extension of ones self. The attachment could be micro, macro, sensorial, drenched in memory, or exist within a dream—maybe you’ve been there a hundred times, maybe you have yet to visit.
Many thanks to those community members who heeded the call, contributed a photograph that helped Amy Ash build the collage included in this exhibition.
“The series Mettle uses copper as both a key material in the work and allegory—its material qualities becoming symbolic of resilience. Copper is a super-conductor of electricity, and the stan-dard by which all other conductivity is measured. Within my practice it has become a conductor of meaning. Copper is a memory shape alloy. It will always ‘remember’ its orig-inal form, and, when pressurized, will invariably revert to its original shape. Copper is also within our biological make-up, closely linked to memory dysfunction. When threatened by the elements, copper will produce a patina, or verdigris. This greenish tarnish acts as a weather buffer to preserve the integrity of the copper below its surface—an exquisite cop-ing mechanism. By adding copper sulphate crystals both to the metal’s surface and the paint’s pigment, the crystals continue to grow and morph as they respond to the climate, a metaphor for personal transformation brought on by external forces.” Amy Ash
“Touching Visions is an exploration of the body as an archive of sensation, experience, and action. The work is created through repetitive labour-intensive and experiential means, such as stitching, documenting performative actions, recording my body in plaster and my voice in looped improvised song. It marks the first time I have used my own image in my work.” Amy Ash

Irene Tompkins: Bouquets and flowers
2021-10-09 - 2021-11-13
A celebration of watercolour paintings by Carleton County artist Irene Tompkins.

Alanna Baird
2022-02-05 - 2022-04-16
Radial SymmetriesThis work revolves around the Pentaradial symmetry of a Sea Urchin shell. Pentaradial being a five sectioned symmetry found in nature that revolves around a central point. The simplest example being the Starfish and its five legs. Alanna Baird has been exploring this patterning through several different mediums and dimensions. The printmaking is often her initial exploration in surface patterns.
Thanks to funding through ArtsNB, I was able to create a body of work in lost wax cast bronze. Using some of my own ceramic work from the 1990’s as forms, I cast wax into these shapes and then altered the wax by cutting holes; exploring the symmetry as well as the strength of this new-to-me material. The bronze was cast in a foundry in Quebec, but the chasing (grinding of sprues and polishing of surface metal) and patination (colour) completed in Alanna’s studio.
The Calligraphic sculpture in plastic represents a second ArtsNB grant funded project. The initial intent was to use 3D printing to change the scale of my work. Computer design is not something I enjoy, the hands on fabrication of things is what I love. I became fascinated with a hand held 3D pen, and the clear plastic it could extrude. Light and air flowing through this new body of work, shadows cast. Although the plastic in the exhibition is too fragile to sell, I intend to work farther in this technique.
I am inspired by what I find on my daily walks on the sea floor, the inter tidal zone of the Bay of Fundy reveals it’s treasure to me. Treasure to me is not gold coins, but rather glimpses of things that catch my eye. Part historical – pipe stems, china shards, even stone weapons of a very early age, and part natural environment – resident as well as invasive species included. Often fragments, shells with their interiors exposed, sea urchin shell pieces which reveal the complexity of their “construction”.
I am a materials based artist. I enjoy exploring the material I have to work with. Mastering techniques, learning how to work with it, what it’s limits are, figuring out what I can do with it. I often work with recycled materials. Invasive species like the Lionfish have entered my view. I am currently working on a printmaking project involving the Golden Star Tunicate, an invasive species along this coastline. – Alanna Baird
Curated by Brigitte Clavette and Jennifer Stead.
Meet Alanna
Saturday, April 16, 2-4 pm at the Gallery

With the Grain: Carving Students' Show
2022-04-23 - 2022-05-21
Marty by Max Hutchison
James Buxton has been teaching carving classes at the River Art Centre for many years. His students have created many beautiful works that we look forward to sharing with you.
Featured carvers include: Lloyd Borowski, Paul Dean, Arline Gordon, Wendy Hall, Susanne Hansen, Max Hutchison, Roseanne Hutchison, Bessie Nicholson Langille, Mark McCauley, Judy McGuire, Scott O’Brien, and Rudy Stocek
Opening
Saturday, April 23
2-4 pm
Introductions at 2:30 pm

Frank Allison: Paintings and Drawings
2022-04-23 - 2022-05-21
Born in Saint John, N.B., Frank Allison (1883-1951) studied painting under Wilfred Molson Barnes and Maurice Galbraith Cullen at the Art Association in Montreal; John F. Carlson, Woodstock, New York; George Elmer Browne in Europe. He worked for the Bank of Montreal in Saint John, and by 1906 had transferred to Ontario and Montreal. He traveled extensively and found his subjects in many countries. Toward the end of WWI, he was working for the Bank in London England and was closely associated with Canadian painter James Wilson Morrice. Although he painted a variety of subjects, he had a special interest in architecture and is perhaps best known for his watercolours.
Peter Larocque, Curator at the New Brunswick Museum has observed that Allison is remembered for his impressionist-inspired landscapes filled with light, mood and atmosphere, and his accomplished watercolours, which show his technical mastery of this very demanding medium.
Watercolour painting has always been appreciated by artists for its portability and in the 19th century in Europe, when landscape subjects were favoured by many artists, art exhibitions displayed comparable numbers of watercolours and oils. However, by the turn of the 20th century, this ratio changed so that the number of watercolours submitted for exhibitions declined rapidly. In 1925 when the Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolour formed, the medium received renewed interest, regaining some of the stature it had lost.
During the 1920s and 1930s, the Canadian art scene in central Canada was focused on the Group of Seven and the idea of a unique “Canadian” art. The Maritimes, however, held strong ties to New England and Great Britain, and so it was within this tradition that Allison found himself.
Allison exhibited with the Royal Canadian Academy exhibitions between 1915 and 1941; at Montreal Museum of Fine Arts Spring Shows between 1915 and 1939 and was a life member of the American Water Colour Society. Among his solo shows during his career was one for his watercolours at the T. Eaton Company Gallery in Montreal in November of 1933 when The Montreal Star critic noted, “Mr. Allison’s subjects are principally the streets and buildings of old towns and, more particularly, towns in the south of Europe. The pictures are mostly large watercolours, painted with much breadth and freedom, full of the gay colour and sunlight of places in Spain, Italy, southern France and Morocco.”
Allison’s art is represented in the collections of Mount Allison University, Sackville, N.B.; Y.W.C.A., Saint John, N.B.; New Brunswick Museum, Saint John; City of Saint John, N.B.; Milliken University, Decatur, IL.; Decatur Inst. of Civic Art; Art Inst., Springfield, IL.; and many private collections. His niece, Mrs. Doreen (Allison) Tuomola of Toronto has kindly loaned her collection for this exhibition.

Closing November 8, 2022: Call for Exhibition Proposals for 2023-2024 seasons
2022-04-30 08:00 - 2022-11-08 17:00 (America/Halifax)
Update: Thank you for your submissions. The Selection Committee has been delayed. We will be in contact after selections have been made.
Contemporary professional artists and curators with a proposal are invited to apply.
https://mccainartgallery.com/artists/

Printers Inc.
2022-05-28 - 2022-07-09
An exhibition featuring prints by Amy Ash, Alanna Baird, Nathan Cann, Ryan Livingstone, Ann Manuel and Bob Morouney of Sunbury Shores Arts and Nature Centre.

Shared Shots: A Community Photography Show
2022-09-03 - 2022-10-01
The Opening will be on Saturday September 3, 2022 from 2 – 4 pm
Introductions at 2:30
All welcome

Made possible through the generous support of the

the gallery as a studio
2023-02-04 - 2023-03-11
Until March 11, eight artists are effectively turning the gallery into a drawing studio. There is something new to see everyday as the artists make decisions, change directions and make progress on their art.
The Closing Celebration will be held March 11, 2023, from 2-4 pm with as many artists present as can make it.
Artists schedules: Vicky Lentz and Francine Martin will be in the gallery most Wednesdays and Fridays until mid-afternoon. Nick Walsh will be here February 2nd, 9th, 16th and most likely the 24th. Stephen Hutchings will be here midday many days, as will Colin Smith. Jennifer Stead is always here, occasionally drawing but always happy to say hi. Amanda Balestreri will be here February 17 and 18.
Nick Walsh is an emerging illustrator from Fredericton, NB. Nick loves exploring the magic hidden in the forests and his work dives deep into the mystical, spiritual, and cultural myths of the natural world around us. His aim is to rekindle the imagination by weaving strange stories into his surreal art pieces that remind us of our role in mother nature's cosmic wheel.
Colin Smith draws constantly, doodles on paper, in books, over shopping lists and has done it since grade one. The landscape is a living, moving entity, a series of slow undulations, studded with trees and potato fields.
Vicky Lentz's practice is exploratory and diverse as she move between materials, mediums and processes. In her art ideas, images, materials are always reconfigured through the process of art making, transformed during creation to be records of the creative experience.
Stephen Hutchings is working on a future exhibition and "Fallen Tree" is a study for a large painting in the series “Theatre of Trees”. The final painting, of which this is a to-scale drawing, will be approximately 8’ high and 40’ across.

Amanda Balestreri enjoys incorporating nature into all of her work. She is interested in observing how humans interact with nature and how our actions have been affecting the natural world over time. Sometimes her work can be a serious commentary or satire on where we may be heading if we continue to disrespect nature.
Amanda will be drawing at the gallery starting Saturday Feb 18. The 18th will be the only day to visit her as she is working through the family day weekend. Drop in tomorrow to say hi.
William Forrestall's subject is time and in his art he preserves moments by painting the shapes and textures of objects that interest him in that most basic of compositions: the still life. In his practice drawing is a means and a place to work out ideas for a future or concurrent painting.
Jennifer Stead drew the first of a series of long drawings, called "Meander" in 2007. 100' long, it is a landscape of the Canadian Rockies where she lived at the time. In this drawing she is working from memory and responding to all the landscapes she has cultivated and observed from many parts of the country.
Francine Martin is a painter from a small community in northwest New Brunswick. Known for her use of Chiaroscuro, a technique that has a strong contrast between lights and darks. Her still lifes and landscapes have been shown all over the St-John Valley in New Brunswick in auctions, festivals, group and solo shows. In 2018 she had a solo show at ALMAG.

The Sketchbooks of Tom Forrestall
2023-02-04 - 2023-03-11
The Tom Forrestall sketchbook collection offers a unique insight into an artist’s working life, a visual and written diary spanning a creative lifetime. The collection now approaching 400 volumes covers over 70 years of the artist’s creative explorations and development. As a daily creative record of observation, reflection and exploration it documents the passions and interests of an observant and creative individual who doodles, sketches and details the people, animals, ideas and places he visits, both literally and imaginatively. Everyday few days the pages of his sketchbooks will be turned so there will be new images to see each time you drop in between now and March 11.
Tom Forrestall Bio.
Thomas DeVany Forrestall, C.M., O.N.S., B.F.A. LL.D., RCA is one of Canada’s leading realist artists. He was born in Middleton Nova Scotia, in 1936. In 1954, Forrestall was awarded a scholarship to the Fine Arts department at Mount Allison University, where he studied with Lawren P. Harris, Ted Pulford and Alex Colville. Graduating in 1958 he received one of the first Canada Council grants for independent study which provided him with the opportunity to travel throughout Europe. Upon their return to Canada they moved to New Brunswick where Tom became assistant curator of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery. He has been a full time artist since 1960. His artwork has been exhibited internationally and is held in major public collection in Canada.

Other Worlds
2023-03-25 - 2023-04-22
Jean-Paul Riopelle, Works on paper
The exhibition Other Worlds brings together two bodies of work from the Beaverbrook Art Gallery’s permanent collection. Five landscapes fill the west gallery with one work each by Canadian artists Miller Gore Brittain, Carol Fraser, William Goodridge Roberts, Robin Collyer, and John Hartman. The five landscapes – four paintings and one photograph – demonstrate the expressive potential of landscape subjects, referencing natural cycles, renewal and growth, and pointing to aspects of the relationship we have with nature. Disparate in style and medium, the five landscapes in the exhibition share an impulse to reimagine the natural world rather than mirror it.
A collection of works on paper by Quebec artist Jean Paul Riopelle fill the east gallery. Riopelle emerged in the 1940s as an artist interested in expressions of an inner reality and the language of abstraction. The works in the BAG collection are mostly from later in his life and some of these images may have been Inspired by the large flocks of snow geese that landed annually in the Bas St. Laurent region where he settled after returning to Quebec.
While contrasting in approach, the landscapes and Riopelle share strong formal antecedents and all of the artists explore varying degrees of abstraction, conceptually and figuratively. In 1952 the American critic Rosenberg called an empty canvas “an arena in which to act..what was to go on the canvas was not a picture but an event”, articulating a significant break with history in ceasing to regard the surface as a support for a picture, but to see it as a record of an action or an event. The leap Rosenberg articulated is manifested here between William Goodridge Roberts Field in Summer and Riopelle’s prints across the room.
Born in 1923 in Montreal, Jean Paul Riopelle became an artist in post WWII Quebec, and under the influence of Paul Emile Borduas, rejected the traditional representational language of painting in favour of an internal and emotive form of expression. He and a group of seven painters calling themselves Les Automatistes, rejected not only representation in painting, but also the French Modern traditions of Picasso and Matisse in pursuit of a unique abstract art embracing unconscious spontaneous expression. Continuing to push the limits and conventions of their art, Les Automatistes were vocal in their struggle against the socially repressive and authoritarian Quebec society upheld by then Premier Duplessis and the Catholic Church. Idealist social theories, psychoanalysis, and in particular surrealism inspired Riopelle to find in abstraction a means to liberate his art from the socially oppressive culture of the time.The first exhibition of abstract art in Canada was held by Les Automatistes in Montreal in 1946.
Struggling in such a restrictive environment, Les Automatistes eventually all signed the manifesto Refus Global, written by Paul Emile Borduas, that condemned the stranglehold over individual freedom, called for the liberation of the individual and helped launch the Quiet Revolution in Quebec. The manifesto caused many artists great hardship and with a resistance to abstraction evident in Canada, Riopelle soon left to live and work in Paris.
Riopelle spent many years in Paris and Giverny, a respected artist who developed an international career. Riopelle’s works on paper in this collection that date from the 1980s, were created after his return to Canada. While some have strong representational references, many do not. With no centre of interest, no representation of the real world they layer gestures, movement, marks and colour, reflecting the artist’s subconscious in unexpected juxtapositions and reveal a few of the methods Riopelle developed to liberate his imagination. He died in Quebec in 2002.
Five Landscapes from the Beaverbrook Collection

Tell me a Story: Five Acadian Artists
2023-06-03 10:30 - 2023-07-22 17:00 | Andrew & Laura McCain Art Gallery, 8 McCain Street, Florenceville-Bristol, New Brunswick, E7L 3H6, Canada
The Andrew & Laura McCain Art Gallery is full of spring colour and summer joy this month as the exhibition of five renowned and celebrated Acadian artists – one sculptor and four painters – share their art with our community. The art works are on loan to the gallery through their art dealer, Daniel Chaisson, of the gallery ART/ARTIST in Dieppe. From the playful descriptions of life on the Acadian shore in the work of Yvon Gallant, to the vibrant dynamism of the palette knife abstractions by Louise LeBlanc, stories abound in the art of these five artists. Together their narratives explore and describe humorous moments, acknowledge history, ephemeral states, balancing acts and decisive moments. The power and impact of colour, textures and gesture are vital means of expression for the artists, whether they are investigating their world, their imagination or their process. The only sculptor in the show, Marie Hélène Allain,most famous for her monumental stone works, is presenting six sculptures from a series of 35, that are assembled from rock, alder wood, copper and bronze. Tall, figure-like constructions, acknowledge the history of the alder tree in the development of Acadian society while talking about her faith and the place of the individual in community.
6.G.Goguen_Fond_orange_ligne_bleueGeorge Goguen Louise LeBlanc, Cndn, UP_TIMIST, Sans titre #1, 2020, oil on canvas11.Y.Gallant_Drapeaux_en_berne2.M.Parent_Ce_long_voyage_a_l’interieur17.M.H.Allain_Altruisme

Altered Land, paintings by Judith Berry
2023-07-27 08:00 - 2023-09-09 17:00
Opening Thursday July 27, 5:30-7:30

Artist Statement

I consider these paintings to be landscapes, although the objects in them often appear more manufactured than organic. Each work employs an aspect of illusion, a reference to three-dimensional space. Yet, upon examination, the forms depicted seem to be composed of nothing other than paint itself, or perhaps a related material, such as modeling clay. Appearing tactile, elements of the paintings twist and transform, becoming buildings, targets, ropes, sticks, bubbles, and areas of flat colour. There is a sense of movement that challenges the weight and solidity of the objects depicted. Larger forms are often composed of a multitude of small, repeated elements, creating works that are both detailed and minimalist.
A few of the paintings in this show came from a recent experiment in which I made very small works, then used them as templates for larger paintings. This led me into new territory. While I was working on them, the small paintings hung next to the larger ones, creating a back-and-forth dialogue between the larger and smaller images. The small paintings function as identification cards, or explanations, for the larger ones. I am presenting these pairs as asymmetrical diptychs to create a slightly humorous relationship between the pieces, inviting comparison and scrutiny.
The paintings also contain references to portraits and still lives. Many of the forms depicted are ambiguous, both in reference and in scale. A vegetal form might represent a tree, a plant, a gesture in paint, or a small part of someone’s face. For me, this preoccupation with shifting
scale is parallel to the experience of life, in which our routines and surroundings may be relatively simple, but they cannot be disentangled from the larger picture of climate crisis, inequality, and disintegrating social structure.
The themes visited in this show stem from a desire to extend the vocabulary of my painting while forming a metaphor for the chaos of contemporary life. Along with an inevitable blend of my daily perceptions and preoccupations, the works contain a contemplation of the larger period in which I paint. It is my hope that, when looking at the paintings, the viewer retains a sense of both scales, of our intimate lives against the macrocosm of our times.

Biography
Judith Berry lives and works in Montreal. She studied at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax and spent one year in the Studio Program at the Banff Centre School of Fine Arts. She has had solo exhibitions across Canada in Montreal, Toronto, Calgary and Ottawa. Judith has also shown in numerous group exhibitions including exhibitions at the Musée du Québec and the Canada Science and Technology Museum. Her work is in various collections including: the City of Ottawa, the Musée du Québec and the Art Bank of the Canada Council. She has served as a jury member for the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the City of Ottawa. She is represented by Galerie Art Mûr in Montreal.
Judith Berry, Hand to Hand, 2022

Napoigagenn: Brian Francis, Tara Francis, Starlit Simon
2023-09-16 10:30 - 2023-10-14 17:00
Brian Francis
Author, Poet, Photographer, Director-Producer Brian Francis of Elsipogtog First Nation is painting his visions, dream images that come to him and he is compelled to embody them with paint. Well known as an international award winning filmmaker and musical entrepreneur, he has produced, directed and has written over 70 award winning documentaries. Most recently Brian released his first book, Between Two Worlds- Spiritual Writings and Photographs.
“I think my work in The Sacred Space goes beyond being Indigenous or non-Indigenous. It goes deeper into the heart of who
we all are as people. It goes beyond historical and political rhetoric, it isn’t about Indigenous rights or Native politics. My artwork serves
to unite ancient souls that dwell within all of us that oftentimes get bogged down by daily stresses of life, regardless of who we are as people. The ancestorial space that is occupied by the ones who were here before us ,It is up to us to acknowledge and honour them and it is where we must seek guidance whilst here in this plane. The Sacred Space is within our hearts a place we often forget to look when we seek answer. Perhaps the lesson in that may be that we may be afraid of what it is we will find when we look deep within the confines of our souls. But reality is , these are the answers we need.”
Tara Francis

“My work is a form of prayer, and it’s healing for me just in the very act of doing it,” says Tara Francis, a contemporary Mi’kmaw artist from the Elsipogtog First Nation, now based in Shediac, N.B.
“A youthful portrait taken from a black and white photo of my Maternal Grandmother Lucretia McLaughlin. This is one of two portraits I have created, the first being a portrait of my Paternal Grandmother Louise Francis. (which is now part of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery’s permanent collection) The stories of these women’s lives and the legacy of their dedication and nurturing kindness to their families and communities are truly an inspiration.
I grew up next door to my Granny Lucretia and it was her support and encouragement that led me to pursue a career in art. These portraits are part of a series entitled That Which has Shaped me. Made possible in part by a Creation Grant from ArtsNB.

Starlit Simon
Starlit Simon is Mi’kmaw from Elsipogtog First Nation and a full-time PhD candidate at the University of New Brunswick in the Faculty of Education. She can often be found highway hunting for porcupine roadkill where she harvests the porcupine quills to create her art. “As I continue through the process of research and academia, I am often grappling with myself, my Indigenous world view, my Mi’kmaq language, and with the western world view and the English language. It often takes me a significant amount of time to operate and understand how to walk, work and communicate in the western world, because when I do, I abandon who I am at my core, a Mi’kmaq woman from Elsipogtog [The River of Fire]. This art piece is symbolic of that internal struggle that many Indigenous scholars can attest to also feeling, not just in their graduate studies but throughout their undergrads and in high schools as well. This piece is a reminder that there is a way to apply two eyed seeing as is the term that was in our language and world view from very long ago. Where you walk with one foot in both worlds. “, Starlit Simon.

Truth & Reconciliation Day at the Gallery
2023-09-30 10:00 - 14:00 | Andrew & Laura McCain Art Gallery, 8 McCain Street, Florenceville-Bristol, New Brunswick, E7L 3H6, Canada
Join us on September 30th for National Day of Truth & Reconciliation at the Gallery. Starting at 10am we will be here to learn, experience, and become better allies to our Indigenous family. All are welcome with openness.

Brigitte Clavette: The Mysterious Soul of Objects
2023-10-21 - 2023-11-18
Opening celebrations of The Mysterious Soul of Objects scheduled 10 November 2023, 5 – 7 pm

The artworks in The Mysterious Soul of Objects are from a series created over the past few years under the name of “futile abundance”. “I cast in sterling silver or bronze discarded foodstuff, found animal parts, and along with these I hammer or “raise” small vessel forms that I call skins. These become the palette or inventory that I use to create still lives or tableaux that invite the gourmand to the table. I am interested in the tension between attraction and repulsion. These platters or tableaux give a living space to the mysterious objects I create. Objects whose function is not always clear. Objects that invite the viewer for some kind of connection or communion. These objects may invite contemplation or curiosity”. Brigitte Clavette
Head of Jewellery and Metal Arts, and an instructor at the New Brunswick College of Art and Design from 1985 to 2017, Brigitte Clavette currently teaches part-time and devotes herself to her artistic practice. She is the 2022 winner of the Governor General Saidye Bronfman Award for excellence in fine crafts, and is a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts. She received the Excellence Award and the Strathbutler Award from the Sheila Hugh Mackay Foundation of New Brunswick in 2006. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, The Victoria & Albert Museum, London England, the New Brunswick Museum, Saint John as well as being included in the contemporary silversmithing collection of the Art Gallery of Guelph, Ontario

Mel Hamilton: Reframing Perspectives
2023-10-21 - 2023-11-18
Opening celebration: Friday, 10 November 2023 5 – 7 pm.

Reframing Perspective is about creating work from an authentic female experience. My previous furniture work was informed by the male woodworking perspective shown in books exhibitions and other collections. I was taught that woven elements were used to add comfort. For this body of work I purposely looked to women for design inspiration and to reclaim the use of soft sculptural materials.
Over 100 years ago Annie Albers, Benita Otte, Gunta Stolzl and Otte Berger were weaving students at the Bauhaus in Germany. Their use of pattern, color and commitment to experimentation pave the way for Modern Art and Design. Works by these four artists directly inspired each piece in this series.
Weaving techniques and designs have been reimagined here in three-dimensional furniture pieces where the wood structures support the patterns and lines of soft material. These works illustrate the dynamic motion of a woven line and show that material can have both a physical and emotional weight.
Melanie Hamilton is an Atlantic Canadian craftsperson in visual artist. She specializes in finely crafted objects using solid wood and woven materials she studied at the center for furniture craftsmanship in Maine and Sheridan College in Ontario. She also holds a fine arts degree from Mount Allison University majoring in photography. Wooden leg Studio has been featured in such Publications as Home and Cabin, East Coast Living, Popular Woodworking and Canadian Woodworking.

Mountain of Wonder and Tangles of Truth: Kathy Hooper, a retrospective
2024-01-20 08:00 - 2024-02-24 17:00
Kathy Hooper’s remarkable career spans six decades of curiosity and creation, and demonstrates what it means to confront our fear and our delight in equal measure. Leading by example, she bravely honours the fullness of life, including the winding pathways where life’s joy and distress intermingle. Across her prolific multi-disciplinary art practice, social and environmental activism, and in her personal life, she approaches the world with earnest integrity and wonder.
Hooper’s imprint on the New Brunswick arts ecosystem has been revolutionary. A highly acclaimed multidisciplinary artist, she has been awarded the province’s highest honours in the visual arts, and her work can be found in public and private collections around the world—she has eight works in the National Art Bank alone.
In art and activism she meaningfully delves into often-overlapping explorations of identity, feminism, multi-species entanglements, socio-political structures, climate crisis and violence. Unbound by any one media, Hooper moves fluidly between painting, clay sculpture and functional ceramics, various forms of printmaking, wood carving, embroidery, poetry and prose. She lives art; nurturing her incredible gardens, and enlivening her domestic spaces.
Yet, it is her ritual of drawing which propels her creative process. Often beginning with just a line, her drawings are largely unplanned and spark with immediacy. She refers to the powerful moment the artwork takes over, as though she becomes a conduit for creativity, rather than its author.
In an artist statement for a 1969 solo exhibition which toured the Atlantic provinces, Kathy Hooper wrote:
“I want to say how infinitely beautiful, how ugly, how funny, and how exciting the world is. I want to stretch as far, and dig as deep as I can. I want to say that there is nothing I know for sure except that — there is nothing I know for sure.” “I would love to reach the land and trees I love so much from where they are, not always from where I happen to be.”
Kathy Hooper, 1979
“Often we feel that we can impose on the landscape, but in fact we make very little impression in the end.”
“What happens behind the land, trees, and water we ‘see’ so easily? We don’t ‘see’ what is really there”
Kathy Hooper, 2010
“The special moments —when your best work happens— is when you allow the painting to take over. The painting becomes you.”

Kathy Hooper, Sept 13th 1995, Times Globe

New Brunswick Art Collecion 2023 Acquisitions
2024-03-02 08:00 - 2024-03-30 17:00
Opening March 2, 2-4 pm
Formerly known as the New Brunswick Art Bank, and renamed Collection Art NB, the provincial art collection was started in 1968 and is a permanent collection of art by New Brunswick artists belonging to the province. There are currently 906 artworks by 395 artists and this exhibition features the most recent acquisitions purchased in 2023. If you’d like to browse the full collection, go to Collection ArtNB. Like other provincial collections, the art is shown in New Brunswick government buildings, offices, schools and other public buildings.
Twenty one artists from around the province are represented in the 2023 Acquisitions show.
Audrey Arsenault
Maryse Arsenault
Alanna Baird
Remi Belliveau
Jon Claytor
Nate Gaffney
Chelsea Gauvin
Mario LeBlanc
Fabiola Martinez
Annie France Noel
Maja Padrov
Roula Patheniou
Melanie Parent
Shane Perly-Dutcher
Jared Peters
Garry Sanipass
Ralph Simpson
Colin Smith
Dawn Steeves
Anna Torma
Janice Wright-Cheney
David Szako

Collections: Petit Mode and Sherman Jewellery
2024-04-06 - 2024-05-18
Opening Saturday April 6, 2-4pm.
Introductions at 2:30 by Clare McCain, Trudy Gallagher and Tracy Austin. Everyone is invited to drop by, admission is free and there is an elevator.
This exhibition brings together the art work of alumni and faculty from the fashion department of the New Brunswick College of Craft & Design and an exquisite private collection of costume jewellery by the mid-century Montreal designer, Gustave Sherman.
The Designers
Laura Macfarlane
Nightfall, 2023
Taffeta, cotton fabric for the vest, taffeta ribbon, chain, and buttons
Echo (Jing) Chen
Lonely Planet, 2023 Echo (Jing) Chen
Horsehair canvas, bemberg lining
Nicole Daigle
The Meadows Road, 2023
Silk brocade, cotton, velvet, kasha lining
Sherry Kinnear
Asymptomatic, 2023
Synthetic fabrics, leather, metal, paint, beads, sequins, thread, wire, human hair
Gustave Sherman
Gustave Sherman, Jewels of Elegance
“Costume” or “Fashion” Jewellery was popularised in the 18th century with the development of a hard lead glass called paste and marcasite, small cut pieces of faceted steel or pyrite set in silver, which became affordable alternatives to precious stones. By the mid 20th century, French designer Coco Chanel declared “that really elegant women were those who could mix together different jewellery, real and fake, suitable for each occasion … with the aim to complete an outfit.” This lent greater legitimacy to non-precious jewellery, with designers conceiving new styles, using new materials and discovering new possibilities with colour. Restrictions during WWII to certain metals changed the production of jewellery as much as it did fashion. Changing lifestyles for women, who were increasingly part of the workforce, the influence of Hollywood glamour and the weakening of European influences in general during the war years, led to the production of the first completely American look of dressy costume jewellery.
Between 1947 and 1982, Canada’s most renowned costume jeweller, Gustave Sherman, pioneered the manufacturing of high quality, Canadian made costume jewellery that rivalled the best being made at that time. Using the finest Swarovski crystals and later their beads and plating he became known for his sophisticated three dimensional designs, unexpected colour combinations, shape and style of crystal, and quality settings.
Sherman Jewellery has always been synonymous with quality. Sherman designed styles which were intricate and complex, full of contrasting lines, shapes and colour. His pieces required large numbers of crystals all of which were prong set by hand and the settings double plated. Another characteristic of Sherman design is the three-dimensionality achieved through his use of layers and domed structures. He offered a range of prices by creating different sized pieces and it isn’t uncommon to have one item from a set signed and the others left unsigned. The cuff bracelet was a unique Sherman design, there are three in Clare McCain’s collection, and they have always been the most desirable pieces.
One of the reasons he was so well known across Canada was because he sold his work through all the large department and luxury jewellery stores like Birks, Eatons and Peoples but also in jewellery stores in smaller centres across the country.
Gustave Sherman was a son of first-generation parents who fled Lithuania to escape persecution. Although he had no formal creative training, in 1947 he worked as a jewellery salesman, eventually opening Sherman Costume Jewellery in Outremont, Montreal. By the 1950s the company was thriving and Sherman was Canada’s most recognized costume jeweller.

Shadows and Tall Trees, Stephen Hutchings
2024-05-25 08:00 - 2024-07-06 17:00
Opening 31 May, 2024 from 5-7 pm
Artist Stephen Hutchings will give a talk starting at 5:15 about his art practice and answer questions about the work in the gallery. Everyone is welcome, admission is always free and refreshments will be served.
Artist statement
My landscape paintings and drawings and prints are, in equal measures, both objective and subjective: they not only describe the world I know, but they also describe the world as I want it to be. I combine a resemblance to the external world we live in with the inner world of my emotions, my expectations and my hopes.
In my work, I engage with ideas about personal identity, mystery, revelation, and the infinite. Areas of rich dark are combined with areas of intense light, playing off of each other, acting as larger metaphors that refer to both ourselves, (as individuals and as part of a society) as well as to the world around us.
This exhibition brings together recent and new work representing a range of subjects, from trees to clouds, as well as extremes of sizes: Theatre of Trees is massive at 8’ x 40’ while the four Ghost Tree paintings are much more intimate at 12” x 12” each. Stephen Hutchings

Ted Michener
2024-07-13 - 2024-08-31
The Andrew & Laura McCain Art Gallery is pleased to be hosting a solo exhibition of New Brunswick artist, Ted Michener.
Michener has been painting for seven decades and currently has his seaside studio in St Andrews, New Brunswick. His exhibition will be concurrent with exhibition “Working With Clay”, three ceramic artists, Andrew McCullough, Michael Wood, and Elsa Valiñas.
The Opening will be on July 13, 2024, 2-4 pm. The artists will be in attendance & introductions start at 2:30.
Everyone is welcome, admission is free and there is an elevator.

Meet the artist

Ted Michener has had a daily painting practice for most of his life. The vitality and colourful images found in his work reflect his surroundings and for many years, his seaside home. Trained as a teenager at the Doon School of Fine Arts in Kitchener, Ontario during six summers, he was fortunate to have studied with several renowned artists including A.J.Casson, Jock Macdonald and Carl Schaeffer.
After graduating with honours from the Ontario College of Art and Design, he free-lanced out of Toronto, and collaborated with Mendola Ltd. an artist’s agency in New York City for many years. For some time Ted taught at his Alma Mater in the evenings as well as Central Tech and Sheridan College in Etobicoke.
Michener was an illustrator for many years, working for The Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, TV Guide, and Readers Digest. Aside from being the recipient of many editorial and commercial art awards, Ted has received a Canada Council Grant to teach in Bacalar, Mexico and also received an Artist in Residency through The Masterworks program in Bermuda.
He is currently represented by the Cobalt Gallery in St. John, The Breakwater gallery in Eastport Maine, and also shows many works through The Gables Restaurant and Gallery in St Andrews. Ted is a member of the Ontario Society of Artists, The Federation of Canadian Artists, The Association of Canadian Cartoonists and a creative fine arts group dubbed “Dash”, which consists of eight New Brunswick artists working in a variety of mediums. Just to keep his hand in and the pressure on, he gleefully draws editorial cartoons for The St Croix Courier, a local community paper, and has been doing so for three decades.

Working With Clay: McCullough, Wood, Valiñas
2024-07-13 10:30 - 2024-08-10 17:00
The Andrew & Laura McCain Art Gallery is pleased to be hosting an exhibition of works from New Brunswick ceramicists Andrew McCullough, Michael Wood, and Elsa Valiñas.
Their exhibition will be concurrent with an exhibition of the paintings of Ted Michener.
The Opening will be on July 13, 2024, 2-4 pm. The artists will be in attendance & introductions start at 2:30.
Everyone is welcome, admission is free and there is an elevator.
Artist Statements
Andrew McCullough
As a potter, I capture the magical possibilities of working with clay by using contrasting elements of striking modern designs and the raw natural qualities of the material. For me, my pieces to act as a time capsule, sharing with others a little bit about me and the how I see the world.

Thaddeus Holownia: of a Feather
2024-09-05 - 2024-11-02 | Andrew & Laura McCain Art Gallery, 8 McCain Street, Florenceville-Bristol, New Brunswick, E7L 3H6, Canada
The Andrew & Laura McCain Gallery welcomes Thaddeus Holownia back to exhibit a body of work inspired by birds. Timed to open on the weekend of pARTicipate Arts & Nature Festival, the works in the exhibition bring together not only science and the arts, but feature a long time creative collaboration by the photographer with his friend and fellow artist, Nova Scotia poet, Harry Thurston.
Opening, artists’ talk and book launch
Thursday, September 5, 2024, 5:30-7:30 pm
Everyone is welcome, admission is free.
The artists will give an informal talk about their collaboration,
their art and the third collaborator, Gay Hansen.

BLUE JAY
Cyanocitta cristata
Unseen in summer, woods-deep,
come fall, you return,
casting voices, your own
and others you mimic.
Not blue at all,
your feathers
bequeath only blue
light to the eye.
Clever corvid,
you may change a life!
— with a beat of your wing,
a call we must heed.
Book Launch
of a feather is the third book in a trilogy that includes Ova Aves and Icarus, Falling of Birds. Conceived as a tribute to the teacher, naturalist, and ornithologist Gay Hansen — Holownia’s late partner and Thurston’s long-time friend, the collection combines Thaddeus Holownia’s photography of bird feathers with the poetry of Harry Thurston.
Heart of the Bird
These photographs are of study mounts prepared by Gay Hansen—teacher, naturalist and ornithologist, and the late partner and muse of Thaddeus Holownia.
A graduate of Acadia, Gay was a lecturer and lab instructor in biology at Mount Allison University, in Sackville, New Brunswick, for 39 years (1979–2018). During this time, she conducted labs in multiple fields. Her great passion, however, was Ornithology.
“I think that it is essential to educate people about birds—they are extremely important in ecological, environmental, cultural and recreational realms,” she once said. “Ornithology is one of the few fields of Biology where citizen science makes significant contributions.”
Gay was also a talented craftsperson, notably as a weaver, and she combined her scientific expertise and her artistic skills in taxidermy, to create a collection of study mounts.
There is an assumption in our time that there is an unbridgeable gap between the Arts and the Sciences.
In fact, there is compatibility, even interdependence, between these two spheres of human endeavour. As Harvard biologist, Edward O. Wilson, observes in Consilience, The Unity of Knowledge: “Neither science nor the arts can be complete without combining their separate strengths. Science needs the intuition and metaphorical power of the arts, and the arts need the fresh blood of the sciences.”
These photographs would not have been created without Gay’s skills as an ornithologist and taxidermist deployed originally for the purpose of passing on her knowledge and love of birds to her students, and generations of students to follow.
The feather—described as “a remarkably refined and complex apparatus … that, among other uses, enabled highly sophisticated flight”—besides its functionality is unarguably beautiful. That is what one feels when first looking at these photographs, ‘How beautiful they are!’
It seems no accident that Holownia’s photographs are of breast feathers—of the heart of the bird.

Woodstock Art Club 70th Anniversary Show 1955-2025
2025-01-25 - 2025-03-08
Opening 25 January 2025, 2-4 pm, Introductions at 2:30 pm
Everyone is welcome, there is an elevator on site, admission is always free
Susanne Hansen
Guest Curator
The Andrew & Laura McCain Art Gallery has a mandate to support and present artists through exhibitions that celebrate the visual arts and artists locally, provincially and nationally. The 70th anniversary of the Woodstock Art Club is a milestone that the Gallery is thrilled to celebrate through this exhibition.
The show was made possible by the dedication of Susanne Hansen, current president of the Woodstock Art Club, who partnered with gallery director Jennifer Stead to curate the exhibition; locating, selecting, borrowing and gathering the 126 artworks that are hanging in the gallery.
This collection of art is evidence of the sustained interest in visual art demonstrated by the residents of Woodstock and the Upper Saint John River Valley and they speak to the interests, aspirations and ideas that motivated their makers. This exhibition expresses the dedication each artist showed to developing their talent and demonstrates the contribution the Club has made to the cultural life of the area.
An exhibition such as this is not possible without the generosity of the lenders and their willingness to share their precious artworks with the larger community and accept a blank spot on their walls for a few weeks.
A sincere thanks to everyone who made the show possible and in particular to curator, Susanne Hansen.
Karen Birnie
Chair of the Gallery Board of Directors
The Woodstock Art Club
The original twenty one members met for the first time in September 1955 united by their interest in visual art and in finding quality art instruction to further their skills and knowledge. In October they held their first fundraiser tea and invited a former Woodstock resident, artist Margery Rogers Donaldson to teach the first class. A graduate of visual art at Mount Allison University, student of Molly Lamb Bobak and instructor through the University of New Brunswick extension program, Donaldson taught members of the Club into the 1980s.
Over the years, the club brought together artistically curious individuals to inspire and support fellow members, develop their art practices, while supporting their creative growth and expression through regular meetings, classes, presentations and exhibitions. Margery Donaldson introduced the club to plein-air landscape and floral tradition in oils and she guided the students to always paint from life and to “never copy”. Donaldson, as a professional artist, was also able to fulfill the club members repeatedly expressed wish to be informed about contemporary developments in the art world.
Meticulous records were kept of attendance, dues, costs and events; membership was one dollar annually and a nickel per meeting. Mrs. Dorothy Clark was the first Secretary, Bonnie Smith, President, May Hanson was the Treasurer and Grace Holyoke was in charge of press coverage. Very quickly the Club became active in the community, contributing to the cultural life of Woodstock, creating opportunities for the members while looking outside the community for further enrichment. The Club took out memberships at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, arranged for their first exhibition at the Carlyle Hotel and hosted the Nova Scotia Artists Association Annual exhibition there in 1957. When the Woodstock high school produced the musical Oklahoma, in 1959/60, members Lucile Kougle, Grace Holyoke, Marion Morgan, Marguerite MacLauchlin, Edna Leach, Gladys Smith and Evelyn Rogers painted the 16 by 24 foot backdrop. In the mid sixties, Gladys Smith wanted to do some redecorating in her bedroom and invited the art club members to paint murals on her walls of the historical areas of Woodstock that were going to be affected by the flooding from the construction of the new dam in Mactaquac. In the late eighties the members took on the management of the Art Competition and Display at the Woodstock Old Home Week Hobby Show.
In the 1950s through the 1990s, the Club organised workshops from a variety of professional artists and teachers, most from Saint John and Fredericton but occasionally from Ontario and Maine. They included Robert Benn, Molly Boback, Ted Campbell, Denis Cliff, William Forrestall, Bridget Grant, Art Cunanan, Don Cyr, Don Fletcher, Florence Hughes, Herzl Kashetsky, Ann Kittredge, Ron Legere, R.J. Love, Kay Macartney, Alex McGibbon, Erin O’Shea, Claude Picard, Alfred Pinsky, Fred Ross, Dylys Taylor-Sabine, Janice Wright-Cheney and Audrey York. The visiting artists were billeted and fed by a different member each evening and Denis Cliff, an artist instructor from Toronto, said he “enjoyed the best hospitality of his career in Woodstock and wished he didn’t have to leave”.
After starting with oils, the club was introduced to drawing basics, pastels, acrylics, collage, screen printing and different subjects through charcoal portraits, life drawing, modernism, abstraction and chinese brush techniques. In the mid 1990s, the club members decided to have an intensive week-long workshop in watercolour with Saint John artist Ray Butler that greatly influenced the direction of the group.
In 1994 Margery Donaldson gave her last workshop for the WAC, leaving a little portrait in the guestbook. William Forrestall and Robert Ben donated their demonstration artworks at the end of their workshops and to this year, the members each draw a name annually and have the artwork hanging in their homes for one year.
The enthusiasm and dedication of the club members is recognised by this entry in the guest book: “To members of the club, thank you for being the inspiration that started me painting again last fall. It was seeing your work that became so overpowering that I had to take my brush up again, and in doing that, added so much more joy to my life” Audrey York, Houlton Maine.
The club continues today welcoming new members – five in 2024, bringing the overall total to one hundred and sixty one members. They meet monthly and if you are interested in joining the WAC, please leave your contact information at the front desk and we will be sure to pass them on to the President, Susanne Hansen.
WAC Original Members

Clark, Dorothy
1955-1997

Connell, Mrs A B
1955-1956

Cougle, Lucy
1955-1965

Creighton, Mrs F O
1955-1956

Hanson, Maye
1955-1957

Holyoke, Grace
1955-1957

Homer, Deez
1955-1956

Ketchum, Dorothy
1955-1956

Kinins, Joan
1955-1956

Leech, Edna
1955-1987

Leech, Helen
1955-1957

Lovely, Mrs Herman
1955-1956

McLauchlin, Laura
1955-1956

Olmstead, Patty
1955-1956

Rogers, Evelyn
1955-1976

Rowan, Mrs
1955-1956

Simms, Laura
1955-1959

Smith, Bonny
1955-1959

Smith, Gladys
1955-1973

Winslow, Charlotte
1955-1985

Wishart, Dr Frank
1955-1956

WAC Current Members

Art Club 2024Standing, left to right: Juanita Power, Catherine Kuijpers, Suzan Carsley, Jennifer Oakes, Janelle Newcomb, Anna Maria Dickinson, Susanne Hansen, and Ann White Sitting, left to right: Karen Bragdon, Elizabeth Radford, and Brenda Bradley WAC Member Biographies and membership dates

Adams, Barbara
1987-1988

Aiton, Linda
1973-1974

Anderson, Randi
Circa 1996

Antworth, Ada
1983-1985

Baird,Jean
1978-1987

Barrett, Melissa
1990-1991

Beaulieu-Snowden, Bernice
1996-1998

Bell, Christine
1987-1991

Bernard, Guy
1988-1989

Beukeveld, Margaret
Circa 1997

Berry, Ann
1962-1968

Blue, Miss Louise
1971-1972

Bohan, Delores
Circa 1996-1998

Bouma, Judy
1986-1988

Bowlin, Mary
1962-1992

Bradbury, Winnie
1987-1988

Bradley, Brenda
1999-Present

“Originally from Montreal, I moved to the Woodstock Area in the 1980’s and subsequently enrolled in a watercolour class with Susanne Hansen and then joined the Art Club in around 2002. This group of artists, who came together once a month, were welcoming and supportive. The club organized workshops and general discussions which I found stimulating, helpful and encouraging. Members worked in a variety of media and have a variety of levels of art experience and background from absolute novice to art teachers and a University Art professor.”

Bragdon, Karen
c.2000-Present

“Karen is a native of Woodstock who has been interested in art for most of her life. She began attending art class in the early 90’s and started to take her work more seriously. She joined the Woodstock Art Club and was the secretary for over 10 years.”

Bragdon(Oldenburg) Kaye
Circa 1995

Broad, Cynthia
Circa 1997

Brown, Marion
1990-1991

Bschaden, Christopher
Circa 1996-1997

Buckingham, Marilyn
1993-1994

Bull, Milton
Circa 1992

Campbell, Twinnie
1993-1997

Carr, Pauline
1956-1957

Carsley, Suzan
Circa 2011-Current

“After moving from Montreal to the Woodstock area in 2011, I happened upon the Art Club exhibiting a craft market in downtown Woodstock.
This was my first contact with any art group in New Brunswick.
I inquired about membership and joined soon after. Over the last 13 years it has been wonderful to be a part of a group of like-minded artists getting together, whether to paint, do a workshop or participate in a potluck.”

Chase, Cathy
Circa 1997

Clarke, Mary (Mrs G F)
1956-1967

Clements, Maureen
1990-1991

Clitheroe, Louise (Daishe)
1975-1997

Colwell, Winnie
1977-1983

Deutch, Angie
2020-2021

Dickinson, Anna Maria
2024-Present

“It was an honour to be invited to join the Woodstock Art Group in February of this year 2024. I had doubts, was I good enough to be a member of this extraordinary group of amazingly talented artists. They welcomed me and I thank them for the opportunity to be a part of the group. I have enjoyed our paint get-togethers and our potlucks; I have even enjoyed trying different mediums – water colour & the linocut technique.”

Dickinson, Robert
1987-1988

Doherty, Sarah
Circa 2012

Doiron, Phil
1987-1991

Dow, Caroline
Circa 1992

Dukeshire, Eileen
1987-Present; Life Member

Dunbar, Adeline
1987-1994

Dunfield, Christopher
1994-1997

Ellis, Alice
1989-Circa 1991

Field, Donald
1987-1997

Flewelling, Lillian
1987-1990

Forrest, Pauline
1974-1977

Foster, Louise
1988-1991

Fox, Edna
1975-1984

Gibson, Terry
1989-1990

Gilliland, Marjorie
1975-1976

Green, Charlotte
Circa 1997

Griffith, Velma
1987-1990

Hacklesperger, Armin
2015-2020

Hansen, Susanne
1986-Present

“I have always had an interest in art. My mom said I was born with a pencil in my hand! Throughout my preteen and teen years I painted in oils using “How to” books my parents provided.
In my twenties I started art classes in Houlton with Esther Faulkner. She introduced me to charcoal, pastel, ink, and watercolour.
In 1986 I was invited to join the Woodstock Art Club. The WAC offered many and varied workshops through the late 80’s and 90’s and I attended every class offered. Along with the WAC workshops, I travelled to week long workshops throughout New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Maine.
In watercolour, acrylic, oil, linocut, intaglio, pastel, and egg tempra – doing life, portrait, landscape, seascape, abstract, still life – in recent years I have tried wood carving and pottery. My love is landscape (water, rocks, and trees) in watercolour.
Making art is as necessary to me as eating and sleeping.”

Hanson, Harold
1956-1957

Hanson, Patti
Circa 1956-1957

Harold, Marie
1992-1997

Havens, Carol Ann
1995-1996

Havens, Shelley
1995-1996

Haywood, Jean
1994-1997

Hemphill, Donna
Circa 1996-1998

How, Heather
1994-2023

Johnson, Cathie
2021-2022

Johnston, Wendy
1994-1997

Jung, Moon Hee
2002-2004

Kearney, Lucille
1990-1991

King, Janet
Circa 1996

Kittredge, C. Ann
1988-Present

“C. Ann Kittredge is a mixed media artist who hailed from Ontario and lived in Woodstock for 34 years, during which time she was a member of the Woodstock Art Club. She retired from teaching drawing, design, and printmaking courses for the University of Maine Presque Isle, and has since returned to her childhood home. She says that she came late to the formal study of art, and had a “first life” in science, studying and teaching science for many years. Her art often reflects this background. She continues to be fascinated by the connections between art and science; much of her imagery arises from a lengthy consideration of issues and phenomena which reside in that area where science, art, and spirituality overlap.”

Kuijpers, Catherine
2024-Present

“I believe art, in its myriad forms, is innate to humanity. We are much stronger with it. Bringing us together through that which makes us drop our jaws in awe, it gives us pause to contemplate and provides a tactile way of expressing ourselves in a medium other than voice. Sometimes beautiful, full of curiosities; or art can be difficult to view and challenging. It always has been and always will be something that connects us all and can bring on an intrinsic emotional response. I am passionate that art should be kept in education and is a tool for therapy that has helped me to heal. It has an uncanny power to heal children and adults alike.
Catherine’s passion and skill in poetry and drama is parallel to an equal passion for the art forms upon which the Woodstock Art Club was formed 70 years ago.”

Larkin-Roy, Ann
1987-1990

Lavoie, Vera
1987 -2005

Lawson, Ada
Circa 1992

Lutes, Deborah
1995-1996

MacFarlane, Wanda (Glass)
1995-1998

MacMillan, Margaret
1956-1964

Martinson, Bobby

Martinson, Noreen
Circa 1998

McAllister, Debra
1998-2023

McCarthy, Linda
Circa 1990

McEwen, Murray
Circa 1996-1997

McGuire, Ginette
1987-2010

McGuire, Irene
1987-2005

McKeen, Meredith
1995-1996

McLauchin, Marguerite
1956-1976

McLaughlin, Heidi
1988-1989

McLellan, Loretta
1997-1998

Mea, Maryann
1991-2023

Milbury, Aileen
1987-1997

Miller, Beverley
1990-1991

Monteith, Heidi
1987-1988

Moore, Mary
1970-1971

Moore, Vean
1971-1985

Morgan, Marion
1958-1974

Morrison, Jim
1993-1997

Neilson, Donna
1987-1988

Neilson, Gladys
1992-1996

Newcomb, Janelle
2024-Present

I moved to New Brunswick in 2019. I painted regularly but missed having the
opportunity to get feedback and share experiences with other artists. Except on the
internet, I didn’t even know where to shop for art supplies and was disappointed when I could not enjoy the tactile pleasure of choosing my materials.
In 2023, I dropped in at the River Art Centre to inquire about locating art supplies. There I met Susanne Hansen and my search was rewarded not only with finding materials but also with being introduced to a large community of local artists.
Susanne’s enthusiasm for and connection to the galleries and art focused events in the area was the inspiration that led me to get involved in: “En Plein Aire”, a 2023 event benefitting The Big Brothers, Big Sisters organization; the Small Works show at ALMAG also in 2023; becoming a member of the Creek Village Art Gallery in 2024. I am grateful to Susanne for inviting me to join the Woodstock Art Club and thrilled to be able to participate in the club’s 70th anniversary exhibition.

Nicholson, Eugene
1990-1997

O’Hagan, Mrs L
1962-1963

O’Halloran, E. Ann
1987-2017

Palin, Marion
1970-1978

Palmer, Barbara
1987-1988

Payne, Blanche
1983-1985

Perry, Geraldine
1994-1998

Peterson, Bernice
1987-1992

Phillips, Bernard
1989-1991

Phillips, Brenda
1997-2017

Pickard, Joanne
Circa 1999-Circa 2001

Polches, Jennifer
2024-Present

Polchies, Wendy
Circa 1994-1997

Poulin, Beverley
Circa 1990

Power, Juanita
2024-Present

“I have been working with paper crafts for over twenty years as a hobby to create gifts for family and friends, starting with cards and scrapbook mini albums for special events. My hobby has now evolved into creating flowers, houses, decorations for doors and centrepieces. I am a recent member of the Woodstock Art Club, being invited to join in 2024. I am looking forward to the continued success of the art club and learning new skills from the many talented artists in the club.”

Prosser, Lori
1994-1995

Radford, Elizabeth
2015-Present

“Artwork came into my life as an adult student in The Interior Design program at College in Vancouver. I learned to draw, draft, understand colour theory and render my project designs. (Residential and commercial) Paint materials included watercolour, acrylic, gouache, ink and felt pens.
Subsequent workshops in Vancouver and Victoria included linocuts, intaglio, textile design and egg tempera. Following a move to New Brunswick, the Woodstock Art Club provided collaboration with other artists, workshops, and a social aspect which was welcome. The New Brunswick College of Art and Design classes in Fredericton created an opportunity to further develop drawing techniques.”

Ross, Mary
1956-1971

Salmon, Cynthia
1997-2000

Schurman, Helen
1956-1959

Shaw, Rayma
1990-1991

Shaw, Sonya
Circa 1998

Smith, Lorraine
1972-1974

Squires, Mrs F C
1956-1957

Stanley, Henni
Circa 1996

Stockford, Marie
1970-1992

Sullivan (Berry), Ann
1962-1968

Tapley, Bud
1987-1991

Tompkins, Irene
1993-1995

Wallace, Mildred
1988-1997

Wallace, Vivian
Circa 1996

Webb, Alice
1987-1989

Wells, Robert
1987-1997

White, E Ann
Circa 2012 -Present

“I have been a member of the Woodstock Art Club for about 10 years. I had just completed watercolour painting lessons from Susanne Hansen and was happy to join this group of talented artists. I was exposed to other mediums and techniques of various art forms.
About 5 years ago when looking for an abstract painting for my home, I became interested in fluid acrylic pours. I really enjoyed the freedom of this method and the interesting finished product. I also enjoyed sharing this art form by facilitating classes. As well as pouring on canvases, I created coasters by pouring on wood and applying a resin finish.
I continue working in watercolour as well.”

Wiggins, Charlene
1993- Circa 1995

Wilkinson, Connie
1991-1992

Wilson, Emily
1993-1994

Wilson, Paula
1993-1994

Wilson, Shirley
1989-1990

Winslow, Marion
1960-1985

Wood, Brenda
1990-1997

Yerxa, James
1990-1991

Denise Violette-Michaud: Petite Forêt
2025-03-15 - 2025-04-12 | Andrew & Laura McCain Art Gallery, 8 McCain Street, Florenceville-Bristol, New Brunswick, E7L 3H6, Canada
Opening 15 March 2025, 2-4pm, Introductions at 2:30pm
Everyone is welcome, there is an elevator on site, admission is always free
About the Artist
Denise Violette-Michaud is a textile and ceramic artist who lives and works in Drummond, New Brunswick. Denise grew up surrounded by fabric as her mother was a furniture upholsterer, and she has continued to be drawn to textiles; their textures, colours, and patterns. They are part of her DNA, her artistic medium of choice, and it is by working with them that she forages the link between art and craft.
Denise explores her emotions and the intensity of life through creation; it is a vital need for her. By transforming and incorporating objects with a previous life, she weaves their history into a new existance.
In Her Own Words: The Story Behind Petite Forêt
“In 2019, I took part in an artistic residency at Fundy National Park, where I was able to contemplate the beneficial effects of nature, which led me into a state of reflection. From these reflections, I created a sculpture whose theme is the tree that heals over time.
In the course of this creation, I discovered a fascination for the work of representing trees and plants through the use and transformation of textiles. I dye them, tear them, sew them, burn them, glue them, cut them, embroider them; the means are infinite, it’s a work that takes me into innovative terrain and offers me more and more interesting technical possibilities.
Recycling fabric is an asset in the creative process and in my research. I give them a new life, the result becoming the main material in the creation of my three-dimensional works.
Exploring certain techniques, I use fabrics to create illusory tree trunks that refer to the trees I see on my walks in the forest. I look for textures and colours given by natural elements; rust, leaves, rotting elements of nature, different earths; I compose 3D works with fabrics modified by these dyes. I also work with clay, which allows me other 3D possibilities.
The research and the path I’ve been able to pursue in creation continue to nourish my desire to continue on my path.
My horticulture training has only scratched the surface of this plant world. A new sense of urgency has arisen: I want to learn more about plant biodiversity and the importance of trees in my life.
The Petite Forêt installation of tree trunks made of recycled fabrics highlights the importance of biodiversity. It’s the result of my observations of the clear-cutting of our natural mixed forests, which have been replaced with monoculture softwood plantations, creating homogenous secondary forests that are less rich in biodiversity. The habitat of natural forest flora, birds and animals has been degraded and the use of herbicides is commonplace. When I travel along some of the roads in our province, I notice this sense of relentlessness and I am saddened by the lack of respect that the forestry industry has for the environment.”
– Denise Violette-Michaud

"Shared Landscapes" By Diana Baldwin plus "Knock Knock and Other Prints" By Natt Cann
2025-04-26 - 2025-05-24 | Andrew & Laura McCain Art Gallery, 8 McCain Street, Florenceville-Bristol, New Brunswick, E7L 3H6, Canada
Shared Landscapes by Diana Baldwin
Diana Baldwin is a printmaker working from her home studio in Port Williams, Nova Scotia, Canada. She was introduced to printmaking by The Mahone Bay Printmakers. With the Guidance of Ed Porter, Professor Emeritus NCCADU, etching became her main focus and passion.
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Knock Knock and Other Prints by Natt Cann
Natt Cann is a Canadian visual artist whose projects of print hone upon the haunting of lands – ideologies and industries keeping afloat Canadian notions of colonial heritage and their degradations. Natt’s aim is to share Atlantic centric discussions of commorancy, climate, and past snuffed economic aspirations amidst the celebrations of current peoples, politics, and newfound practices.
“I am a printmaker focusing primarily on etching. My subject matter includes still lifes and landscapes.
I have a particular interest in how landscapes are affected by the changing seasons and the passage of time. Agricultural and manmade patterns on the land are also fascinating to me. On my daily walks, bike rides, or time spent gazing out the window, my attention will often be caught by a snatch of colour, interesting pattern, or texture. This becomes inspiration for future projects.
I enjoy the etching process and the many steps it takes to get the finished print. It gives me time to settle in and think about how I will achieve the end result. It also allows for the possibility of experimentation. I am constantly learning how this process can be adapted to aid in the interpretation of my ideas.
I find myself excited by what is offered by the blank plate at the beginning of a project. There is always hope and expectation at what will come off the press at the end of the journey.”
-Diana Baldwin
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“Knock Knock continues my interests as an ongoing explorative series into the 21st-century capitalist rental system, an admission that many will never own a house, a stark reminder of the loss of architectural heritage, and the urgent need to address the housing crisis. The body of work is a collection of primarily Atlantic doors, impressionable Victorian brownstone and Gothic Revival abodes captured in lens based means and mono-printed through photochemical transfers. Their texture and design imparts a sense that they are vanishing in favour of their replacements, undeniably featureless podium developments designed for those who can’t yet afford them.
Yet, amidst the seriousness of the art’s statement, a pleasantness and authenticity stands bold amongst the collection. The colour and variation of the nearly 200 and growing mono-prints, bring to the audience the nostalgia of home on the east coast and what it means to own or not own a house in today’s world.”
-Natt Cann

Kindred Spirits, the Lucy Maud Montgomery legacy by contemporary Canadian Book Artists and Book Illustrations by local artist Leland Wong-Daugherty
2025-05-31 14:00 - 16:00
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You are invited to the opening on Saturday, May 31st from 2pm to 4pm.
Artists Meg Clark and Leland Wong-Daugherty will be in attendance, introductions begin at 2:30pm
Admission is always free, and there is an elevator on site.
Kindred Spirits is a touring exhibition of book arts that honours the life and literacy legacy of Lucy Maud Montgomery. Presented by the members of the Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artists Guild, the exhibition commemorates the 150th anniversary of Montgomery’s birth through original works that reflect her enduring cultural impact.
Leland Wong-Daugherty is an illustrator, natural builder, and kite maker based in rural New Brunswick, Canada. He lives off-grid in a home he designed and built himself, alongside his wife, Tegan, and their four children.
“The Faery Chronicles” book one is Leland’s second illustrated book.
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