Beaverbrook Art Gallery Announces 2020 Studio Watch Artist

Category: arts 323

Sackville-based visual artist Lucy Koshan will be the featured artist for the 2020 Studio Watch Emerging Artist – Painting exhibition.

Fox and Hound. oil on canvas, 213cm x 152cm, 2017

The Beaverbrook Art Gallery announced that Lucy Koshan will be the featured artist for the 2020 Studio Watch Emerging Artist – Painting exhibition. This annual exhibition, made possible by the support of Earl and Sandy Brewer, will be on display upon the Gallery’s reopening, through December 30, 2020.

Lucy Koshan is a visual artist born and raised in western Canada, now living in Sackville, New Brunswick. In 2011, she took a semester off high school and went to New York to study figurative oil painting at the National Academy of Design. This was her introduction to ‘serious’ painting, and the rules and techniques learned there still inform her painting practice. In 2018, she graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Mount Allison University, where she received the John P. Asimakos Award in painting.

Koshan is queer and of settler descent, and is an active member of the Sackville arts community. In addition to visual art, she maintains a commitment to environmental issues. “I am fond of the salt marshes, overgrown ditches and bird life of the Tantramar, and have chosen to make my home here,” says Koshan.

“Lucy Koshan embodies the most imperative insight needed by an artist: she doesn’t just look at her world, she sees it, grasps it, and reflects it back to us,” says John Leroux, Manager of Collections and Exhibitions at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery. “At first glance Lucy’s paintings might appear almost innocuous, routine even, with their snapshot-like compositions and heavy use of pinks and purples. However, there is a story at play in her work, an outward normality that has a looming edge. As she carefully stages the minutiae of faces, backgrounds, and mundane details in the painted surfaces, her strong interest in storytelling and narrative fiction – of novels, comics, and movies – becomes apparent.”

The Studio Watch: Emerging Artist, Painting program, now in its fifteenth instalment, is made possible with the generous support of Earl and Sandy Brewer. “It is a pleasure for us to continue our association with the Beaverbrook Art Gallery Studio Watch series, and to continue supporting our province’s exceptional emerging artists,” said Earl and Sandy Brewer. “We would like to thank John Leroux for leading this project with great energy. Congratulations to this year’s winner, Lucy Koshan. You join a special group of artists who have been a part of this series. 

The 2020 Studio Watch Emerging Artist – Painting exhibition of Lucy Koshan’s work will be on display upon the Gallery’s reopening, through December 30, 2020.

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