An exhibition of Fine Craft featuring the works of master artisans Philip Doucette, Ian Gilson, Brad Hall, Wilma Butts, Laura Kenney, Peter MacWhirter, Jennifer Marlow, Don Moore, Mindy Moore, Carlo Myers, Louise Pentz, Sally Ravindra and Kay Stanfield and Hans Durstling.

March 17 to April 14, 2023

Opening reception: Friday March 17 from 6 PM to 8 PM.

There will be more works in the exhibition than will be posted on the site.

We encourage you to come and view all of these fascinating three dimentional works in person.

A former TV news anchor and CBC Radio broadcaster, Hans Durstling became captured by the magic of gemstones around the mid-1980s. At that point he began serious cutting, including a stint in Los Angeles cutting for the then president of the American Opal Society. He went on to study gemology, and combined his background in communication with his interest in stone by writing for gem and general publications.

He initiated a teaching and demonstrating facility, The Electric Park Learning Center, at the world's top mineral and gem expo in Tucson, Arizona, and is the originator of a 7-hour Discovery Channel series "Stones of Fate and Fortune".

In the July 2016 Issue of Reader's Digest, he was featured for his recutting of gems salvaged from the Fort MacMurray fire.

Currrently based in Halifax, he offers gemstone recutting and repair, sourcing, assessment, and restoration of gems and other stone, and does private commissions in precious stone and/or precious metal.

Born in Corner Brook and raised in Halifax, Peter MacWhirter has taken a circuitous artistic path to Liverpool, Nova Scotia, where he now works and lives.

While studying Sciences at Mount Allison University he was introduced to the world renowned Zoologist, Dr. W.B.Scott, in St. Andrew's, N.B. Before working with Bev Scott, MacWhirter spent a short time working as an apprentice natural History illustrator at the Royal Ontario Museum. The artist went onto illustrate many scientific publications including, The Atlantic Fishes of Canada (U. of T. Press, 1988). It was at the Huntsman Marine Science Centre, St. Andrews, that he was offered the opportunity to design and construct several dioramas in their aquarium. This led to work in film and television.

For 11 years he worked as a Key Model Maker within the Nova Scotia Film and Television industry. This work included work in the areas of prop making, SFX and special make-up effects. As demand for this work lessened in Nova Scotia, he began to investigate other artistic opportunities. In 2008, he was appointed Assistant Professor within the Design Department at Hongik University, Seoul, South Korea. He recently left this position for full-time art making in Liverpool.

The artist has lectured at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA, Beijing), Guangzhou Academy of Arts (GAFA), Shenzhen University, Shenzhen Polytechnic University, NSCAD University and OCAD University. He has been invited as a resident artist in Argentina, Australia, Equador, Paraguay, New Zealand and Shenzhen. He has received support from The Canada Council for the Arts, Nova Scotia Arts Council, Korean Arts Council and Canadian embassies in Japan, China, South Korea and the USA.

Since 1982, MacWhirter's artwork has been about marine and aquatic habitats, and the animals and plants that live there. The artist describes his practice as, "The mixing of visual metaphors to create linear and non-linear narratives." Irony has been a constant feature of these narratives.

MacWhirter graduated from OCAD University (AOCA), Toronto, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art (BA Honours), Scotland, and MFA from West Virginia University, USA. Later, he was accepted to the London Film School, however he did not attend due to an attractive job offer in Seoul, South Korea. It was there he produced the pilot for the award winning animation series entitled, NetiBee.

The artist's works are in public and private collection throughout the world.

Patricia Morris was born in Beauharnois, Quebec, and spent her early childhood in Kitimat, BC. Her secondary school years were spent in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. After returning to Canada, she received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Mount Allison University, a Masters of Fine Arts from Concordia University, and a Diploma in Art Education from McGill University. In 1980s she began exhibiting abstract drawings and installations in Montreal, Que., Sackville, NB, and St. John''s, NL while teaching drawing and sculpture in the Continuing Education department at Mt. Allison University.

The following 16 years were spent exploring abstraction with pastel and ink, exhibiting in Kingston, Ottawa and Toronto. During this time she taught art at secondary and elementary levels in Quebec and Ontario.

Patricia Morris is an award winning artist with works in major Canadian collections. She has refined her focus in recent years and combined her strong understanding of abstraction with a visually fascinating reference to the diverse beauty of Canadian landscape. She has received many accolades for her current "Trans Canada Drive" series, which celebrated road trips through all of Canada's provinces with dynamic, semi-abstract oil paintings. These works are at once mysterious yet somehow familiar, as the viewer can experience a sense of landscape in motion that is rendered in a distinct, refined and fluid manner.

New work by Johanna Steffen and Philip Doucette

November 18 to December 9, 2022

Opening reception: Friday, November 18 from 6 PM to 8 PM

Craig Rubadoux and Lorena Ziraldo: Poetry and Paint places the work of these two outstanding painters together for the first time.

Both artists are well known for their strong styles, their insightful use of colour, and their preference for figurative subject matter.

In lieu of an opening reception, Craig  will be in the gallery on Saturday, October 15 from 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM to meet with visitors. Unfortunately, Lorena will be unable to attend.

Wayne Boucher was born in 1943 in Ontario. He studied at Banff Centre, AB and and at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax, receiving his Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in 1975. The following year he moved to Grawood, Annapolis County, NS, where he has carried on his painting practice to the present time.

Wayne has been an active member of Canadian Artist Representation (CARFAC), Visual Arts Nova Scotia (VANS) and Arms Length Funding for the Arts (ALFA). He is a founding member and past chair of the Annapolis Region Community Arts Council (ARCAC) and a past chair of the exhibitions committee of ARTsPLACE, artist-run-centre in Annapolis Royal, NS.

Since 1975 Boucher's painted work has dealt with surface tensions between figuration and abstraction, geometry and organic form in play with large elemental fields of colour, or black and white. The paintings from (1997 - 2000) utilized a variety of international signaling codes; such as marine signal flags, ground to air signals, and Morse code. These spatial images portended to vast oceanic voyages, and dangerous crossings in opposition with the systemic pattern and codification of the signals. His current painting practice is about the familiar and unfamiliar underworld of watery places and saturated colour space. "All I really want people to do is fall in and drown in the work".

Ted Lind is a practicing artist and an active volunteer with the Annapolis Region Community Arts Council in Annapolis Royal, NS. He retired in 2013 after 40 years working as an art educator and curator. Most of his career was spent in art museums and he has a special fondness for his time at the Philadephia Museum of Art, the Albany Institute of History and Art, the Cincinnati Art Museum, and the Newark Museum. Lind majored in visual arts at Albion College (Michigan) and earned his Master of Fine Arts degree in painting from the Rochester Institute of Technology (New York). He was also a Max Beckmann Fellow in Advanced Painting Studies at the Brooklyn Museum Art School in New York. Lind spent time apprenticed to a silversmith in Tlaquepaque, Mexico. His art can be found in numerous public and private collections. He lives in Granville Ferry, Nova Scotia with his wife, Judy, and they both enjoy closely following the arts careers of three grown daughters.

Ted Linds work is always taking twists and turns, but its constants are vivid colour, substantial form, and varied texture. Built up layers, constructed forms, overlapping patterns, and strident marks are constant throughout. The paintings have become a wonderful place where he can teeter between irrational 'visioning" and practical "constructing".