A melange of medium, background, purpose and inspiration await with this year’s crop of New Art. Here are the art-makers, free-thinkers and heart-cradlers to watch in 2018. Emmanuel Nwogbo Shary Boyle & Emily Vey Kevin Cormier Kelsey Borden Ben Waye Carrie Allison Waka Okabayashi Eyelevel Gallery Related Stories
New Art 2018
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Ben by nature
Flipping through Ben Waye’s sketchbooks feels like bringing an image into focus—the NSCAD student’s fashion designs come together slowly, from colour palettes, material samples and collages into stunning completed looks. Waye, 19, says his first two years at NSCAD have been a whirlwind. Since moving to Halifax from Mirimachi in 2016, he has grown his […]
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Kelsey Borden stitches her anxiety
Kelsey Borden, Thoughts and Confessions February 27-March 3 Anna Leonowens Gallery 3 1891 Granville Street Kelsey Borden’s interest in embroidery didn’t click in one moment. It unfolded slowly: “I come from some very crafty women. My grandmother was Depression-era, so she sewed all her kids’ clothes, and my mother grew up with the craft of […]
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Kevin Cormier lives through paint
“I had this one really turbulent Tinder date where they decided ‘Let’s meet at your studio at 12 o’clock in the morning on a Friday.’ We had this big bag of booze and we were just tearing through my work and this boy was like ‘You’re Taylor Swift!’” Kevin Cormier laughs, leaning forward in his […]
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Shary Boyle and Emily Vey Duke’s epic feminist poem
Shary Boyle & Emily Vey Duke, The Illuminations Project To April 29 Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, 1723 Hollis Street “Meet Bloodie,” reads the promotional material for the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia’s latest exhibition. A naked, dirt-encrusted girl stands in murky darkness as colours burst from her body: Rainbows stream from her arms and […]
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Emmanuel Nwogbo’s digital riffs
Emmanuel Nwogbo’s favourite James Bond is Sean Connery. Growing up on tales of spy missions and perfectly gelled hair, he’s seen all the Bond films, but it’s Connery’s ’60s capers that stand tall above the rest: “I keep watching those ones because they’re so ridiculous. Some of the names are hilarious, stuff that you could […]
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Eyelevel Gallery’s steady outlook
The last few years have seen some serious redesigns for Halifax’s artist-run centres. Around the same time that the Khyber was pushed out of its home on Barrington Street, Eyelevel Gallery—one of Canada’s oldest artist-run centres—also moved out of its space downtown, due to high rent costs. The Eyelevel board and then-director Katie Belcher took […]
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Waka Okabayashi wants to be a plant
Waka Okabayashi, I want to be a plant To February 17 Anna Leonowens Gallery 2, 1891 Granville Street In the mind and work of Waka Okabayashi, life really does imitate art. The NSCAD student, who moved from Japan to Canada after middle school to begin studying English, says she draws inspiration for much of her […]