We Cling to beauty as the world falls apart
solo exhibition at the Saint John Arts Centre
Opening on May 8th 5 to 7 p.m.
Show runs until June 27th. Artist talk on the 27th at 1:00 p.m.
solo exhibition at the Saint John Arts Centre
AfterBurn
Group Exhibition at ArtsPlace Gallery
In 2025, wildfires across Nova Scotia altered landscapes, disrupted communities, and filled the skies with smoke. In Annapolis County, including areas such as West Dalhousie, residents experienced evacuation alerts, prolonged burn restrictions, and a heightened awareness of environmental vulnerability.
“AfterBurn” is an exhibition and community art initiative that reflects on the aftermath of these events. Grounded in the lived experiences of the Annapolis region while extending across the province, the project brings together artistic and community responses to consider what remains in the wake of wildfire.
I’m very pleased to have work included in the group exhibition “Afterburn” at ArtsPlace in Annapolis Royal. The show responds to themes of fire, aftermath, and transformation—ideas that feel especially close to home following last summer’s wildfires in our region, and which continue to inform my work. The painting “Fiery Abyss (Fire and Flood)” was created in response to this call. The opening for this group show will be on April 18th from 12 to 2 pm. Hope to see you there!
Upcoming Exhibition: Saint John Arts CentreI’m very pleased to share that I will be presenting a solo exhibition of paintings “We Cling to Beauty as the World Falls Apart”, at the Saint John Arts Centre in Saint John, New Brunswick, opening in May 2026. This exhibition brings together three interconnected bodies of work created over the past five years—Splendid Isolation, Ruptured Landscapes, and Cataclysm. Shown together for the first time as a comprehensive survey, these paintings reflect an ongoing response to our changing relationship with the natural world and the accelerating realities of the climate crisis. The works emerged during a period marked by environmental disruption, global uncertainty, and a growing sense of instability. Across the paintings, small human figures appear within vast skies, turbulent seas, and fractured landscapes. They are not heroic or dominant, but vulnerable—witnesses to forces far larger than themselves. Fire, water, and weather act not as backdrops, but as active presences, shaping the emotional and physical terrain of the work. Although the subject matter is rooted in climate disruption, beauty plays a central role. For me, beauty is not a denial of crisis, but a way of staying present with it. It is how grief, fear, awe, and love coexist—how we acknowledge what is being lost, and why it matters. These paintings do not offer solutions; instead, they invite reflection on what it means to live attentively and ethically in a world that feels increasingly fragile. I believe there is real value in seeing these works together, in one large gallery space. The exhibition reveals the continuity between these bodies of work and creates a strong visual and emotional impact that is difficult to experience when the paintings are seen in isolation. An artist talk will take place during the exhibition, where I’ll speak more directly about the work, the climate crisis, and the role of painting as a space for reflection, attention, and connection. I hope you’ll join me at the Saint John Arts Centre in May to pause, reflect, and spend time with this work. More details to come soon!
 
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Article in Clare Champion about the upcoming Cataclysm concert/art event on October 10th at the Kilkishen Cultural Centre in Co. Clare
Hi friends,
I am writing you from St. Andrews, Scotland, where I am happily relaxing and recuperating with family, after a magical month long adventure in Ireland!
It has been a great trip of reconnecting with friends, exploring music, art and beauty in Co. Clare, the Cill Rialaig Retreat, County Kerry and the Glens of Antrim.
Early in 2025, my good friend fiddler Maeve Donnelly and I hatched a plan to collaborate on a project in which we could combine visual art and music, called “Cataclysm”, calling on the musical talents of Maeve, flute player and singer Nuala Kennedy and guitarist and singer Sean Lyons, to present a multi-media presentation with a focus on the environment and spurring climate action, in County Clare, Ireland. This concert/presentation, on Friday, October 10th, took place to a full house at a beautiful church with great acoustics, called the Kilkishen Cultural Centre in Co. Clare. It was a magical evening! The music played that evening focused on nature, beauty and the environment, and consisted of beautiful arrangements of traditional Irish jigs and reels, as well as songs, including an original song composed by Sean Lyons especially for the event. The tunes were mighty! Both Nuala and Sean sang some incredibly moving songs.
Because I wasn't able to bring my paintings to Ireland for this event (they are rather large!), Ted and I created a 20 minute video/slide show of my seascapes from the Cataclysm Project (alluding to the climate crisis) that was to be projected on a screen at the back of the church. This video was displayed as people entered the church, then again halfway through the first half of the music performance, at which point I spoke about my thoughts and intentions regarding this series of paintings, as each image was shown in its entirety, then zooming in on details, as well as showing the layering of the “scrims”. The scrims featured images of faces of people I had spoken with regarding their feelings about the climate crisis and then captured their expressions by painting their portraits, that were digitally captured, magnified and printed on large transparent silk organza scrims. These were superimposed on some of the seascape paintings to show the connection between people and their environment.
It was an inspiring and joyful evening, and I'll never forget it! hope it is an event that will evolve and happen again, perhaps in 2026.
There are plans in the works for a catalogue/small book of the Cataclysm Project with text that is derived from my artist talk that night. I'll keep you posted!