Visual Arts Nova Scotia announces the return of the En Route Artist Talk Series bringing national and international visiting artists to different areas of the province this Spring and Summer. VANS presents artist talks starting with Gráinne McHugh in Wolfville, followed by Jennifer Angus in Yarmouth, then JJ Lee in Halifax. These free presentations are offered in collaboration with Art Galleries and Artist-run Centers across Nova Scotia as part of the third En Route Artist Talk Series, which aims to enhance existing programming and broaden contemporary art conversations.

Gráinne McHugh artist talk at Harvest Gallery
462 Main Street, Wolfville, NS
1pm on Saturday, April 29, 2017

Jennifer Angus artist talk at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia Western Branch
341 Main Street, Yarmouth, NS
2pm on Saturday, May 6, 2017

JJ Lee artist talk at Art Bar + Projects
1873 Granville Street, Halifax, NS
6pm on Friday, July 14, 2017

Gráinne McHugh trained as an artist in Cork and Galway, Ireland, and has exhibited extensively in South Africa where she lived for several years. Mainly working with ceramics McHugh creates ambiguous figures: beautiful, cute, fun, but also discomposed, ironic and muted. “My sculpture should speak for itself,” she asserts, “it should attract or repel; it should have its own magnetism.” 
In 2014, the artist was part of a FabLab residency program in Lisbon, Portugal, exploring the scope of digital fabrication. She has recently been part of several group shows in Berlin and Bremen, Germany. This is her first Artist-in-Residence in North America. Her project at Lunenburg School of the Arts is entitled: Dark Waters. Her Dark Waters exhibition opens at LSA Friday, April 28, 7pm.

Jennifer Angus is a professor in the Design Studies department at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. She received her education at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (BFA) and at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (MFA). Jennifer has exhibited her work internationally including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and Spain. She is currently Artist-in-Residence at ARTsPLACE in Annapolis Royal. Lookabout, is an exhibition that chronicles the mysterious disappearance of two young women, Anne and Victoria Oliver who were well known residents of Annapolis Royal. On the day of their disappearance in 1867, the girls armed with butterfly nets were said to have told their mother they were going to catch fairies and were never seen again. Lookabout is an authentic recreation of the Oliver girls’ collection of local flora and insects in ARTsPLACE’s main gallery.

JJ Lee’s work explores the intersection of Chinese and Canadian cultures by appropriating images from a variety of sources. Born and raised in Halifax, NS, Lee received her BFA from NSCAD in 1992. After living in Vancouver and exhibiting in Vancouver and across Canada, Lee pursued her MFA from York University, Toronto (1999).  Lee has been featured in The Globe and Mail and ELLE Canada. She is the recipient of several awards, such as from the Canada Council, the Ontario Arts Council, RBC New Canadian Painting Competition and the Asian Canadian Artists Fund for Visual Arts. Her work is in the collection of both private and public institutions such as RBC, York University and the Canada Council Art Bank. She is represented in the Magenta Foundation’s Carte Blanche: Painting, a survey of contemporary Canadian painters. She is Assistant Professor, Contemporary Issues of Representation in the Faculty of Art Drawing and Painting program at OCAD University in Toronto.

For more information please contact:
Carri MacKay
Programming Coordinator
communicate@visualarts.ns.ca
902-423-4694