Mixed-media artist Arjun Lal is deep in thought, their expressive brown eyes surveying the Halifax Common as if the perfect word they’re searching for will be found in the grass. Sitting beneath a squat tree, they are sharing the story of how their art has evolved. “I grew up in the Halifax-Dartmouth area and went […]
art resistance
Posted inArts + Music
Séamus Gallagher rings the climate crisis alarm with candy-coloured art
When Séamus Gallagher laughs, it’s a bright, jangly sound that brings to mind the eye-searing colour palette present in their photography and performance work. Heavily influenced by drag and internet culture, they’re known for images like a figure drowning in a sea of red and yellow stickers blaring “UH OH”—or the perfectly made-up corpse covered […]
Posted inArts + Music
Art is the resistance
Art and politics have always been related—a strange, warped sisterhood, pushing and pulling like the tides. When waves roll to the right, art is there to pull back with both hands (think of Andy Warhol’s attack on consumer culture that was his Campbell’s Soup Cans). In many ways, there is no political punch like the […]
Posted inArts + Music
Artist Jenny Yujia Shi explores the immigrant experience
Entering the studio space of mixed-media artist Jenny Yujia Shi, a repetition in colour and shape arrests you before you even notice the view of Halifax Harbour. On every surface—even the slanting ceiling—arrows like the ones on Shi’s passport point into oblivion. Faceless figures stack up neatly as Plexiglas cutouts on the table. A large […]
Posted inArts + Music
Artist Carrie Allison is clearing space to think
Carrie Allison can’t stop thinking about grass. Like a verse in a Walt Whitman poem, she’s been ruminating on single blades of the stuff, questioning its symbolism. “I look at grass as a tool of colonization. Basically it’s been used to claim space. This idea of grass and of lawns started with royalty and them […]