A call for reflection away from the distractions and noise of everyday lives, in her installation Breath, Ann Manuel intricately wraps moments and objects into metaphors, inviting reflection on our connection to family, our separation from nature, and the inevitable ebbs and flows of our lives. 

Breath is the final work in the Sanctuary series which Ann began two decades ago. The inspiration for the series began with the last breath of Ann’s father and ended with the last wish of her mother, almost sixteen years apart. Ann has been working as a multi-disciplinary artist with a focus on drawing, painting, printmaking, and installation. Over many years, she has been a supporter, advocate, educator, and studio artist at Sunbury Shores, sharing her skills and inspiration with the community. The installation includes a film of the same name by New Brunswick filmmaker Matthew Brown. 

Fantastical Transformations is the work of a collective of three professional artists who explore imaginary, idyllic, dreamy and sometimes sinister nature scapes and portraiture. The multimedia exhibition presents a vision that is somewhat creepy yet filled with a spark of levity and fun that embraces the fantastic. 

Roisin Cadieux recycles her massive archive of antique music into paper-based sculptural forms including mythical beasts and animals; Diane Twombly photographs, then digitally deconstructs abandoned or declining architecture and re-imagines them in more spacious, dream-inspired landscapes or lost places; and Jeannie Pappas’ sculptural creatures suggest a ceramic menagerie that reflects nature as well as folklore and mysticism.

Angel Commins uses the interplay of colour and form to celebrate the natural environment and its ability to bring peace in an often-challenging world. Through her abstractions of the environment inspired by the beauty she sees in Charlotte County, Commins looks to form, line and colour to define the landscape, create meaning, and generate an emotional response in the viewer.

In her exhibition, the series Memory 1-6, Fredericton artist Audree Hamelin St Amour presents brooches using natural and found elements, and traditional jewellery techniques and materials. In her work, she reflects on memory formation and transformation, and on themes of ephemerality, transformation, and mindfulness.

Mother and daughter duo, Jennifer Wiebe and Lena Beckley, celebrate the natural world through observational painting in oil and watercolor. Wiebe’s work captures the dynamic and playful relationship between sunlight and the moving surface of water. Beckley examines in detail the various textures found within local seashells. Each artist invites the viewer to consider the wonder and abundance of beauty found within and around Atlantic region coastlines.

Two New Brunswick artists explore how nature inhabits us, and how we inhabit nature. For Jennifer Pazienza and Paul Édouard Bourque, the exhibition is the third in a series of three that presents a dialogue between and among their work. Their discussion centers on how individual and co-created artistic identity, memory, and time can influence art. Pazienza’s landscapes and Bourque’s images evoke a heightened understanding of the relationship between people and nature.

Amber Young’s lyrical paintings depict how flowers expressively growing up out of wild fields or along the edges of ponds and streams can reflect in the water and grow up into expansive open skies. Inspired by her travels in Asia and her Canadian roots, the artist hopes to combine her love of water and water reflections with an exploration of blossoms and wild foliage and the feeling of being within nature.

An annual exhibition of artwork by Charlotte County students of all ages. This year, young artists are focusing on the theme of Earthfest in their art, for example, protecting and preserving our planet, helping to build a sustainable future for all, and celebrating Earth and all living beings.