October 24 to November 15, 2008. Lorena Ziraldo was born in Italy and raised in Canada. She completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts with a major in painting at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. Even while a student at NSCAD, her work demonstrated remarkable maturity and depth. Since her graduation in 2000, she has steadily increased her following with successful exhibitions in Halifax, Toronto, and Vancouver. Lorena’s paintings are rich with fluid and exquisite brushwork, and indulge in the possibilities of expression through use of colour, light, space, and composition. The narrative quality that emerges in many of her paintings is made all the more compelling by her insightful control of her medium. For this latest exhibition, Lorena has produced 32 new paintings. All but one of this number are figurative, and as her expertise continues to grow, this body of work contains more than a few wonderful surprises. We think that you will agree.

Sept.26 to Oct.18, 2008. Paul Hannon was born in the Finger Lakes area of New York State. He has a Bachelor of Arts from the State University of New York at Oswego, where he majored in Fine Arts. Paul’s training focused on drawing, painting, and printmaking, with special emphasis on the areas of etching, screen printing, and lithography. Paul also studied painting in New York City with Elaine DeKooning and Jack Beal, and watercolour media with Diana Kurtz at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. Paul exhibited in California during the 1970s and taught graphics at Venture Gallery in San Diego. He has done edition printing for several artists. After immigrating to Canada in 1989, Paul renewed his interest in drawing and painting. He has since become well-known in the Maritimes and beyond for his original oil paintings, watercolours, and drawings. He is represented in numerous private and public collections and has been published in many periodicals and books. Paul’s approach to painting is to continually discover and explore style and subject matter within the main broader areas of landscape, coastal, and cityscape painting. In this body of work, Paul’s enduring focus on the depiction of light is explored further with superb examples of coastal and landscape paintings, complemented by several stunning depictions of Halifax at night.

Sept. 26 to Oct. 18, 2008. Dean Brousseau studied photography at NSCAD in the 1970s, and worked as a documentary and fine art photographer for the next ten years. He received much acclaim for his work, which was included in a nationally touring exhibition entitled The Canadians, which also travelled to Canada House in London, England. Since 1985, Dean has had a successful career as a cinematographer in film and video. Because of his need as an artist to express a more personal artistic vision, separate from his collaborations as a cinematographer, he has recently turned his eye back to the practice of still photography. Some of his recent work has been purchased by the Art Bank of Nova Scotia, and generated interest from private collectors as well. As part of the 2008 PHOTOPOLIS Festival of Photography, we are delighted to present Dean’s captivating imagery. The exhibition not only includes examples of the artist’s recent series City of Trees, which are printed with carbon ink (the latest technology in black and white printing), but also samples of his earlier figurative and cityscape imagery, which were produced using traditional silver based darkroom printing. While enjoying the images, viewers will also have the opportunity to compare the characteristics of these high quality printing alternatives.

April 18 to May 17, 2008. Since antiquity, the flower has been used as a symbol for beauty, loss, and the fleetingness of life. In this body of work, Adams has updated this usage by drawing on modern drafting film or Mylar. This translucent surface has then been backed with Stonehenge artist’s paper, on which mixed media washes and text have been placed. The resultant faintness of these background elements serves to further symbolize the gradual fading of memory.

Jeanne Aisthorpe-Smith was born in England in 1945. After studying graphic design in the 1980's, she moved to the west coast of Canada to further her studies,and graduated from the Victoria College of Art in 1995. Since the late 1990's, Jeanne has focused her attention on landscapes, predominantly from her vicinity in Nova Scotia's beautiful Annapolis valley. Her paintings combine vibrant and often whimsical colour with traditional architecture found in rural settings, resulting in a unique and unexpected feeling of balance and harmony.

Susan Coolen is a fine art photographer based in Montréal, Québec. She was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1955 and graduated with a Bachelor of Design from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 1977. She moved to Montreal in 1991 to pursue a BFA in photography at Concordia University, followed by an MFA in photography at Columbia College, Chicago. Her work has been included in solo and group exhibits in Canada, the United States and Europe. These include the two-person exhibit 'Beyond Science' at Metrònom in Barcelona, Spain, 2004-05, 'Shifting Sites' with the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography and the National Gallery of Canada's "On Tour" program 2000/2003, and the international event «Encontros con la image» in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, 2000. As well she has had recent exhibits in Pittsburgh, Toronto, Vancouver, Kitchener, and Montreal.

Kim completed her BFA at the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design University in 1996 and her MFA from the University of Western Ontario in 1999. She is an interdisciplinary artist who resides in Eastern Passage, Nova Scotia. Kim has worked in installation/performance/video/sound, with writing/drawing/painting as a thread throughout. More recently, Kim’s focus has turned more fully to painting. “I am interested in colour, working intuitively and moving further and further away from clear representation. The further I enter the shapes and forms, the freer I become from the rigidity of what we might expect to see or know in a picture like a figure or a building. That being said, I love flowers, the ocean, and gardening.”

Originally from Germany, Horst Deppe studied under Walter Kubbernuss. Since moving to Nova Scotia in the 1950's, he has taught and studied at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. He has an impressive record of international exhibitions and is represented in numerous collections. Horst's watercolours reflect his fascination with the bogs and coastal regions of Nova Scotia, while his woodblocks reference a narrative expressive European tradition.

Terry Havlis Drahos has had a diverse career in the visual arts for nearly 25 years, as an artist, educator, graphic designer, and gallery director. Her own art practice is strongly rooted in a passion for gestural figure drawing. In recent years, her work has adapted the spontaneity of figure drawing into non-representational compositions, rendered in oil and encaustic. In 2005,the gallery hosted a very well-received exhibition of this work, entitled Elemental Ratio, which was based upon the ancient Golden Rectangle, or Golden Ratio, thought to be the most aesthetically pleasing shape. Though this work was non-representational, the use of colour, light, and format are clearly influenced by the scenic landscape where she lives in the Annapolis Valley.

Randy Engelberg studied fine art and filmmaking in Montreal and New York before attending the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1986. Randy has had an innovative career in theatre, art and education. Since 1990, her work has been exhibited in numerous galleries across Canada. Her imaginative work is distinctive not only in its unique usage of materials, but for its broad range of references to design, literature and social commentary and its often striking usage of colour and form. Randy lives and creates art from her pink house and studio in Halifax.

Opening - September 21 at 7 pm. LEYA EVELYN and Danish artist ELIN NEUMANN show their respective approaches to "abstract" painting September 21 to October 13, 2007

Born in Washington, D.C. and educated at both Brown and Yale Universities in the United States, Leya Evelyn moved to Nova Scotia in the early 1980’s after having lived and worked for some time in New York City.Evelyn’s paintings show her passionate concern with pure forms, abstract shapes, and intense colours. The powerfully rich and deep colours that dominate her paintings and the loving, painterly application of those colours demonstrate the artist’s abiding interest in the techniques and effects of abstract painting.Leya is internationally recognized for her work.

Last Exhibition: A Group exhibition by some of Nova Scotia's truly exceptional craftspeople. Also - Small Paintings by Christopher Webb. October 26 to November 26.

Renée's first art instructor was her father, well-known painter Tom Forrestall. She holds a BFA and BA in Art Education from NSCAD, where she now is an instructor in anatomy and historical and critical studies. Her diverse and accomplished background encompasses traditional painting techniques, including a variety of methods used in mediaeval icon painting. Her work has been widely exhibited and collected in Canada and internationally. Renée's current body of work emerges from her long interest in video imagery. The paintings, which depict the frozen video images of the likes of Jane Eyre and Joan of Arc, simultaneously blend her classical abilities and interests with subjects made contemporary by their mainstream, technological source.

Bob Hainstock has worked in Atlantic and Western Canada as an artist for more than thirty years. He is a fulltime printmaker, painter, and arts instructor. He teaches at Acadia University, Wolfville, Nova Scotia, and in many private workshops. His work is represented in galleries throughout Canada and the U.S. He is primarily concerned with landscape fictions and the potentials of texture and colour. He explores the contrasts and frictions between rural and urban cultures, and between natural and man-made environments. His studio techniques include a full range of painting, mixed media, collagraphs, woodblock, etchings, monoprints and experimental processes involving rust oxidation and hand-made papers from Fundy seaweed

Brad Hall – sculptor, blacksmith - is a graduate of the Sheridan School of Art, Brampton, Ontario. Brad works with a variety of metals and traditional blacksmithing techniques - forging, welding, banding and riveting. Occasionally, these metals are combined with stone and/or wood, allowing Brad to create a design that combines art and function. During his career he has experimented in a variety of mediums, including photography, pottery, and weaving and over twenty years of working with wood in restoring heritage buildings. He has found the transition into creating with metal to be both exciting and challenging, and his work reflects a strong affinity for these materials.

Paul Hannon was born in the Finger Lakes area of New York State. He has a Bachelor of Arts from the State University of New York at Oswego, where he majored in fine arts. Paul’s training focused on drawing, painting, and printmaking, with special emphasis on the areas of etching, screen printing, and lithography. Paul went to New York City where he studied painting with Elaine DeKooning and Jack Beal. Paul also studied watercolour media with Diana Kurtz at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. Paul exhibited in California during the 1970s and taught graphics at Venture Gallery in San Diego. He has done edition printing for several artists. After immigrating to Canada in 1989, Paul renewed his interest in drawing and painting. He has since become well-known in the Maritimes and beyond for his original oil paintings, watercolours, and drawings. He is represented in numerous private and public collections and has been published in many periodicals and books.