The Colour of Place

Isabelle Devos grew up in rural Ontario and arrived in Sackville in 1988 to attent Mount Allison's Fine Art programme graduating with a BFA iin 1991.  “I have always sensed an undercurrent in the places where I live, like a song whose notes belong only to that location.  Sackville was my home through my twenties and thirties, where I took my first steps as an artist and where I learned to listen to the land.  These paintings carry the colours and notes I find here in Sackville, in this place held back from the sea at the eastern edge of Canada.”  Isabelle  currently lives with her family in Australia. 

Lesley Johnson, originally from the Moncton NB area, attended Mount Allison's Fine Art programme between 1990-1994.  She earned her BFA in 1994. Lesley launched her career in illustration, publishing two illustrated books. She then spent 15 years in NYC developing as a skilled artisan (sign painting, decorative painting, gold gilding and calligraphy), serving top clients such as The Chelsea Hotel, Jimmy Kimmel, Rachael Ray, and The Four Seasons Hotel.  “Using landscape as a common ground, I explore how light and colour can open a deeper view into the physical world and what may lie beyond it.  Some say we cannot see what we do not recognize - my paintings are a way of learning to see further, and of sharing that possibility with the viewer.”

Claudia Mannion arrived at Mount Allison's Fine Art programme in 1999 as a mature student already well versed in her art practice as a graphic desiger.  During her stay in Sackville she gained recognition being awarded the John Asimakos Award for painting in her third year of studies.  In 2007 she was included in the prestigious Marion McCain Atlantic Art Exhibition at the Beaverbrook Gallery in Fredericton, NB. (Curator: Tom Lovett).  “Dramatic tides that engulf the shore, tidal pools that remain when saltwater retreats, wide open skies, the ever changing colours of the marsh near Partridge Island where I live.  These are the images that inspired this series of paintings.”