Press Release

“Looking Forward/Looking Back”
DAWN MACNUTT and NANCY STEVENS
Opening Reception on Wednesday, November 4TH 4-6pm
Lyghtesome Gallery, Antigonish, Nova Scotia

During the month of November, Lyghtesome Gallery in Antigonish is featuring a two-person show entitled “Looking Forward/Looking Back”, highlighting the work of sculptor Dawn MacNutt and painter Nancy Stevens. These two well-known artists, both long-time friends, fellow graduates of Mount Allison University in Sackville, NB and distinguished members of the Nova Scotia arts community, come together, each with their own multifaceted look at memory. Both women lived and worked in the Dartmouth/Halifax metro area for years but have since relocated to the rural northern shore of Nova Scotia, Dawn in Little Harbour, Pictou County, and Nancy in South Side Harbour, Antigonish County.

Dawn MacNutt studied art and psychology at Mt. Allison University and pursued a career in counseling and social work for many years while raising a family, all the while taking courses and workshops in spinning, weaving and basket making. Her fascination with the human form and natural materials, led her from on-loom weaving and basketry, to small and large scale three-dimensional woven forms in handspun wool, felted fleece, silver and copper wire, then airy life-size figures woven with interlaced willow, honeysuckle, wisteria and grapevine. Dawn began experimenting in electroplating and then casting her original willow figures into bronze, making them suitable for outdoor installation, an example of which can be seen at the Alderney Gate on the Dartmouth waterfront. Bridging the world of sculpture and traditional craft, her work caught the attention of collectors and galleries across Canada and has since been shown in more than 100 exhibitions around the globe, including solo shows at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, the John B. Aird Gallery in Toronto, and Montpelier Art Centre in Laurel, Maryland.

Dawn MacNutt is a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts and has an Honorary Doctorate Degree from Mount St. Vincent University. Her work is in numerous private and public collections, including the Museum of Civilization, Rideau Hall, the Museum of Art and Design, New York and the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.

The figure sculptures featured in “Looking Forward/Looking Back”, some made of natural material, some made of wire mesh and of metal, are newly infused with color, inspired by the discovery that the artist’s recent move to PIctou County was an “accidental” return to the very homestead established by her forefathers, generations ago. Her ‘new’ studio is located in the 170-year-old farmhouse built by her great great great grandfather. This collection of new work reflects on these unexpected, energizing threads of continuum that are allowing the artist to “explore new avenues that reference both the past and the future”.

Nancy Stevens received her Bachelor in Fine Arts from Mount Allison University, studying closely with three accomplished artist-teachers, Lawren Harris Jr., Ted Pulford and Alex Colville. Following university, she worked for the CBC and then traveled extensively abroad, eventually returning to Halifax to work as a commercial artist, free-lance for the CBC and eventually marry and raise two daughters. When time allowed she turned to her own art and began exhibiting at the prestigious Nancy Poole Gallery in Toronto, having sell-out shows every two years. Finally getting her own small studio on Barrington St. she prepared for a major solo exhibition of abstract paintings at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in 1995 entitled Horizon Paintings, “where the horizon, a place we can never reach, became a metaphor for time.”

Nancy has continued to explore the transitory elements of time and space, past and present, in her painting, becoming known for her integration of abstract spatial narratives with realism, layering gradations of soft colour and subtle pattern shifts with a finely tuned pointillist technique.

In “Looking Forward/Looking Back” she takes a more detailed autobiographical look at time and memory with seven multi-layered collage works, composed of materials collected from different periods and facets of her life. With careful attention to placement and design, they are a creative recycling of experience and relationship, reconfigured with personal reflection and the use of new and old painting. The collage works are accompanied in the show by four representational drawings in graphite and coloured pencil of what the artist calls “memory places”

Nancy Stevens has exhibited both regionally and nationally, taught drawing and painting at the N.S. College of Art and Design and St. Francis Xavier University and conducted workshops across the country. Her work is included in collections of the Canada Council Art Bank, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, the National Capital Commission, the Nova Scotia Art Bank and other major institutions and corporations. Her more recent solo exhibitions include the Confederation Centre Art Gallery, St. Francis Xavier University Art Gallery and the New Brunswick Museum.

“ Looking Forward/Looking Back” runs from November 4 – 28 and both artists will be in attendance for the opening of the show on Wednesday, November 4th from 4-6pm. All are welcome.

Left, Dawn MacNutt and right, Nancy Stevens