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UNB Art Centre

Current exhibition

World Water Day: Beachcomber by Gary Weekes and Aqua by Jean-Christophe Lemay

Exhibition opens: Friday, March 8 at 5 p.m. and runs until April 29.

The UNB Art Centre celebrates its 13th annual World Water Day with two exhibitions, Beachcomber by Gary Weekes and Aqua by Jean-Christophe Lemay. World Water Day (WWD) is an initiative of the United Nations to bring awareness to the importance of water resources and their sustainable management. This year’s exhibition represents two different perspectives on WWD. Weekes’ focus is less about environmental concerns and more about social ones - the use of water as a historic means of transportation as it relates particularly to the Black experience.

Lemay on the other hand, presents a series of large-scale photographs that depict the power and beauty of our Canadian waters and its inhabitants. Through his camera, Lemay creates stunning documents of the great Canadian outdoors and invites the viewer on this passionate journey with him.

Weekes’ Beachcomber presents a perspective on Black Canadian history. On the walls are images of the Bay of Fundy’s New River Beach. As part of the North Atlantic, the waters of the Bay of Fundy, are those same waters that touch the shores of England and Africa providing the currents upon which 18th century sailing vessels plied their trade.

New River Beach is by Gary Weekes

On the gallery floor, blocks of concrete and epoxy resin encapsulate images of driftwood and stone. For Weekes, the stones collected on the beach represent the ballast used to keep ships afloat, while the driftwood stands in for the slave ships themselves.

Gary Weekes is a Fredericton-based photographer and filmmaker who has exhibited at the Fredericton Regional Public Library, the Charlotte Street Art Centre, Gallery on Queen, and the New Brunswick Sports Hall of Fame. He is the first Black artist to have a solo exhibit at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery. In 2023 he was the recipient of CBC’s Black Changemaker Award. Weekes has received Canada Council and ArtsNB grants in support of his work.

He has participated in the FAA Artist-in-Residence program and taught photography for EdVentures and the UNB Art Centre’s Leisure Learning and Design Works programs. He is Vice-President of the New Brunswick Black Artists Alliance, President of DocTAlks, and a Board member of ArtsLink NB and the Fredericton Arts Alliance.

Photographer Jean-Christophe Lemay’s exhibition Aqua, directs his lens on Canada’s aquatic environments and the animals that inhabit them. His images are a means to discover the bounty that exists in this country but also to highlight the precariousness of these ecosystems. As a result of habitat degradation, pollution, over-hunting and over-fishing, the world is losing approximately 100 - 10,000 species a year. In Canada alone, it is currently estimated that more than 800 species are on the brink of extinction with over 4,000 more at risk.

Underwater Otter is by Jean-Christophe Lemay

Jean-Christophe Lemay has received many awards for his outstanding photography. In 2023 he was awarded Canadian Wildlife Photographer of the Year by the Canadian Geographic magazine. In that same year, he received Silver and Bronze at the Paris Photography Awards, was an exhibitor and speaker at the Aves Nature Photo Festival in Belgium, and was awarded third prize in the Landscape category of the Canadian Wildlife Federation’s annual photo competition.

In 2021 he was awarded first place by both Nature Sauvage and Canadian Geographic magazines. Jean-Christophe Lemay’s photographs of the expedition aboard the research vessel Coriolis II were featured in the exhibit Fathom the Depths of the St. Lawrence Estuary: Art & Science/ À des brasses de profondeur dans l’estuaire du Saint-Laurent: Art et Science at the UNB Art Centre in 2023.


Memorial Hall | 9 Bailey Drive | UNB Fredericton campus
For more information, please call 506-453-4623.

Monday to Friday: 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Free admission | Everyone welcome

2024 upcoming exhibitions

The life and legacy of Brigid Toole Grant

This exhibit pays tribute to the artist Brigid Toole Grant who passed away on Aug. 1, 2023. The daughter of Norah Vernon (Barry) Toole and Francis James Toole, Brigid grew up on the UNB campus and spent her early years living in what is now known as Sir Howard Douglas Hall.

Brigid’s natural abilities were nurtured early on when she took art lessons from UNB Art Centre founder Lucy Jarvis and she became known for her powerful woodcuts, landscape paintings and interior decors. Works on display will be from the UNB Permanent Collection, and on loan from the NB Art Bank, as well as from friends and family.


Avian cyborgs: The art of Terry Graff

The UNB Art Centre is the final stop for this touring exhibit which catalogues over 50 years of work by Terry Graff. Graff is a perpetual student, not only of history but of current affairs and interprets his ideas and observations through the juxtaposition of manufactured materials and the persistent image of one of the planet’s most ancient species, the bird.

Over these many years he has incorporated a vast range of media, not only the usual artists’ tools like paint, brushes and pencils, but all the detritus of the everyday world, discarded then found, re-envisioned and reassembled.


 

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