Page 29 - Dreamscapes Magazine | Winter 2021-2022

and African Nova Scotian artists are receiving. For example, Mi’kmaq artist Jordan Bennett won the Lieutenant Gov- ernor of Nova Scotia Masterworks Arts Award in 2020—Nova Scotia’s largest award for any work of art, in any medium. The same year, Afua Cooper, an African Nova Scotian author of 12 books and one of the founders of dub poetry in Canada, won the Portia White Prize. (Portia White was the first Black Canadian concert singer to win approval across North America in the 1940s and ’50s.)
Two Indigenous and two Black artists are also deserving of a mention here. Alan Syliboy paints in acrylic and mixed media and is inspired by Mi’kmaq traditions in rock drawing and quill weaving. Also a curator and children’s author, his work is in
OPPOSITETOP:Artloverstakeabreakandreflectonsome of the masterpieces on view at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. OPPOSITE BOTTOM: Halifax’s beloved Blue Wave is a public art piece that is a popular meeting point on the waterfront. Discover Halifax TOP LEFT: On your water- front stroll, scoot by to see a funny public art sculpture known as the Drunken Lampposts. TOP CENTRE: See a hand-painted lobster at the Halifax waterfront.
TOP RIGHT: A statue of a Lebanese immigrant in traditional clothing commemorates the arrival of the Lebanese community to Halifax. Bruce Bishop
the permanent collection of the AGNS. Jordan Bennett, a Mi’kmaq visual artist orig- inally from Ktaqamkuk (Newfoundland), lives near Halifax. He paints, silkscreens, and sculpts while exploring the Mi’kmaq and Beothuk visual culture of Ktaqamkuk. His work, particularly murals and façade paintings, can be found across Canada.
Letitia Fraser, an NSCAD alumna, is an African Nova Scotian interdisciplinary artist who draws inspiration from her commu- nity’s quilting history. Her evocative portraits painted in oil on quilts are decid- edly memorable. Clara Gough of East Preston, N.S. is a sculptress and basket weaver whose artwork honours her late mother, famed basket weaver Edith Clayton. Ms. Gough is a descendant of Black Loyalists who arrived in Nova Scotia in the late 18th
century. She can sometimes be found at the Halifax Farmers’ Market weaving baskets from red maple—a craft she has been per- fecting since childhood.
Halifax, or K’jipuktuk, which is the Mi’kmaq term, is a welcoming city for artists of all disciplines and from all ethnic backgrounds. No longer mired in its colo- nial past, it is emerging as the destination of choice for immigrants arriving from around the world, and like the city’s earliest immigrant resident Anna Leonowens, they too are leaving their indelible mark on this side of the Atlantic Coast. DS
Bruce W. Bishop is a writer and novelist whose latest book, Uncommon Sons, is available for purchase at Amazon.com and Amazon.ca, and on Rakuten Kobo.
TRAVEL PLANNER
For Halifax travel information discoverhalifaxns.com
Self-Guided Downtown Art Tour downtownhalifax.ca/arttour
Art Gallery of Nova Scotia artgalleryofnovascotia.ca
Anna Leonowens Gallery, NSCAD University theanna.nscad.ca/about/
Stay at the new art hotel, the Muir, which has an extensive private in-house gallery. Every guest room showcases an original local landscape painting. muirhotel.com
WINTER 2021/2022 DREAMSCAPES 29