Generously supported by Frank McKenna
Featuring Nat Cann, Gerry Collins, Bonny Hill, I-Chun Jenkins, Heather McCaig, ReBecca Paterson, Yuliia Porkhun, and Julie Whitenect
Curated by Bonny Hill
June 10 – July 23, 2022
Exhibition Launch: July 10 at 6:00 p.m.
Artist Talk: 6:00 p.m. over Zoom
Join us at AX on June 10 at 6:00 p.m. as we welcome Ellen’s Tour to the gallery. AX has partnered with the Ellen’s Tour de Sussex organizers to create an exhibition that will coincide with the cycling tour held in Sussex in June. The exhibition will feature eight New Brunswick artists who have created work in a wide variety of mediums.
Ellen Watters was a promising young cyclist just starting to make a name for herself in the world of competitive cycling when she was struck by a car on a training run near Sussex in 2016. Ellen’s Tour is an annual event to honour Ellen’s memory, raise awareness of road safety, and celebrate Ellen’s achievements in cycling and women’s sport.
Along with the Ellen’s Tour exhibition, AX will also host an artists’ talk with the eight participating artists, who will be joined by exhibition curator and professional artist, Bonny Hill. The artists will discuss the inspiration behind the pieces they created for Ellen’s Tour.
Ellen’s Tour will launch on June 10 at 6:00 p.m. in the AX gallery, and run until July 23. Afterwards, the exhibition will travel to The Gallery Space in Alma, making it AX’s first touring exhibition.
Artist Talk
Along with the Ellen’s Tour exhibition, AX will also host an artist talk with the eight participating artists, who will be joined by exhibition curator and professional artist Bonny Hill. The artists will discuss the inspiration behind the pieces they created for Ellen’s Tour. The talk will be held over Zoom at 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday, July 6. Those interested in attending the talk should e-mail info@axartscentre.ca for the Zoom link.
The Artists
About Nat Cann
Nat Cann has exhibited and curated programs in Canada and internationally, and has gratefully acted as a printmaking mentor, instructor, and technical assistant to numerous students and professionals. Nat has been granted residencies across Canada, and his recent print projects have been commissioned by organizations like Third Space Gallery’s Third Shift (Saint John, 2019 & 2021), Third Space Gallery and ACAP Saint John publication, Shorelines (Saint John 2021), Connexion ARC’s Roadside Attractions (Fredericton 2021) and Exhibition Air’s Residency program using carbon captured materials to create upcycled intaglio and screen printing inks (Calgary 2021). His work has been consistently supported by ArtsNB’s Career Development and Creation and Documentation programs.
Nat obtained a BFA from Mount Allison University in 2012 and now resides in Saint John, New Brunswick, a colonial coastal city upon the unceded territory of the Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) and Mi’kmaq Peoples.
See Nat’s artwork:
About Gerry Collins
Born in Moncton, Gerry Collins completed a Zoology degree with a minor in chemistry from University of Manitoba, followed by a Fine Arts degree from Université de Moncton in 1997. She has had solo and group shows in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Manitoba and France. She has twice been a jury member for the Canada Council for the Arts, as well as for the Galerie Sans Nom, the artist-run centre in Moncton, NB. In 1999, her project Les Portes Françaises was selected as a permanent sculpture by the Symposium d’Art Actuel, held in honour of the World Francophone Summit. In 2005, she was first runner up for the Canadian Federal Government Sculptor position. In 2017, one of her amphoras was awarded Honourable Mention at the International Ceramics Competition in Gualdo Tadino, Italy. Her work is in public and private collections.
Gerry believes in the importance of art education in public schools and taught as an invited artist for eight years in the francophone District One Schools of Greater Moncton with the GénieArts program. She also taught Sculpture and Ceramics courses as a sessional lecturer at Université de Moncton during the years 1999 – 2016. She is now focused exclusively on the production of her craft.
See Gerry’s artwork:
About Bonny Hill
Bonny Hill is a contemporary Canadian artist who was selected for the 2017 Surveillance Studio Watch at the Lord Beaverbrook Art Gallery for her series, I Don’t Know Anything About Art. I Just Want Something Nice to Hang Over My Sofa to Match My Living Room.
Bonny completed a Bachelor of Art in Art Education at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 1984 and has recently retired from a 31 year career teaching art in public schools. In 2011, she was recognized by the Canadian Society for Education Through the Arts with the Canadian Art Educator of the Year award. Her teaching was also recognized nationally in 2013 with a first place finish in DC21YCC Youth Creativity Challenge sponsored by Canadian Heritage and provincially with the New Brunswick Teachers Association Credit Union Award for Excellence in Teaching. Bonny has also been active in theatre, directing spring musicals, building and designing sets, teaching choreography, and performing.
See Bonny’s artwork:
About I-Chun Jenkins
An honors graduate in Textile Design from the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design in1994, I-Chun Jenkins began her career in the fibre arts, weaving scarves and shawls using yarn that she dyed in the traditional Japanese wrap dyeing technique known as IKAT.
Between 1992 and 1997, she received numerous grants and awards for her work both as a student and as a professional fibre artist. During this period of time, Ms. Jenkins’s products were featured in the Art Gallery of Ontario gift store.
In 2013, she set up a home studio and began the process of getting back into weaving and creating with fibre. I-Chun was never one to follow tradition, nor did she want to duplicate any piece of work, so she looked at working with non-traditional weaving material and ways to create one-of-a-kind pieces of art. Her love of magazines, nature, and protecting the environment led her to an artist’s logical conclusion: she decided to reuse the magazines, integrating them into her weaving and art work. Pages are meticulously cut, sliced, woven, crocheted or folded together to create a unique piece of art.
About Heather McCaig
Heather McCaig is a flameworked glass artist from Ontario, who now lives near Sussex, New Brunswick. Heather is entirely self-taught and at the forefront of flameworked fine art in Atlantic Canada. Through her work, she hopes to portray the fragility of our natural world and inspire a need for its protection.
In 2019, Heather transitioned from her production glass line to creating one-of-a-kind fine craft. Heather has received a scholarship to the Pittsburgh Glass Center in the United States and support from the New Brunswick Arts Board through their Creation Grant, Career Development Grant Program and an Arts Infrastructure Grant for New and Emerging Artists. In August of 2021, Heather displayed her first gallery series titled Shadow Ecology, a statement about Canada’s threatened ecosystems and the climate crisis. This exhibition was selected by Canadian Heritage and the Department of Tourism, Heritage and Culture to represent New Brunswick at the Frankfurt Book Fair in Frankfurt, Germany.
See Heather’s artwork:
About ReBecca Paterson
ReBecca Paterson experiments with a tactile medium and offers a unique perspective to the manipulation of fibres and images. Her enthusiasm to make art with a threaded needle, either in hand or with a domestic sewing machine, allows her imagination to run wild as she investigates what will happen to the multitude of materials that she uses. Basic skills learned at an early age from her mother, and the knowledge and skills acquired from several years of study, allow ReBecca to explore this artistic expression.
See ReBecca’s artwork:
and the wheels go ’round and ’round
About Yuliia Porkhun
Yuliia (Julia) Porkhun is an emerging artist who moved to Canada from Ukraine in October, 2021. She has a professional background in architecture and design, but always leaned toward art as a hobby. She loves to create digital abstract pieces, most of which are inspired by the built environment or architectural drawings. Cycling is an important part of her life, too, and she always wanted to try to combine these passions to express her love of cycling through art. Doing this in memory of Ellen Watters has been a big honour for Yuliia.
About Julie Whitenect
Graduating from Mount Allison University in 2014, Julie Whitenect has been busy growing her practice, working on commissions, exhibiting locally, nationally, and internationally as well as receiving project grants from the New Brunswick Arts Board and The Canada Council for the Arts. Julie is the Executive Director of ArtsLink NB and is engaged in the local arts ecosystem.
Julie’s work explores the relationship between natural and constructed environments, exposing the viewer to their dichotomy. She is interested in exploring industrial themes and the New Brunswick art discourse surrounding place and ideas of place making, as well as creating a correspondence and resolving curiosity by examining what is left and what will be.
Julie lives and works in Saint John, New Brunswick, which sits on the unceded territory of the Wolastoqiyik and Mi’kmaq People.
See Julie’s art:
This project is generously supported by Frank McKennna.
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.
