Fall 2023 Exhibitions at Eltuek Arts Centre

Bree Hyland, love at first site from in the garden, 2023, paint on paper, 30″x 22″

Eltuek Arts Centre’s Fall 2023 Exhibition Line-up

September 1 – November 30, 2023
Eltuek Arts Centre
Sydney, Nova Scotia

We are celebrating our largest exhibition season to date, with new works in all four galleries by artists, Caitrian MacNeil (Unama’ki, Cape Breton), Bree Hyland, Ian Funke-McKay (Plekteaq, the Bay of Fundy), Erik Moskowitz and Amanda Trager (New York) on view.

Lotic Fictions
Caitrian MacNeil

Lotic, meaning of, relating to, or living in, actively moving water.

In these works, the Margaree River.

Each painting contains a narrative, both fictional and autobiographical, featuring female protagonists that explores the complexity of unseen and interior lives.

The expanse and beauty of Unama’ki, Cape Breton speaks to ancestral lineages of fractious mother-daughter relationships, and the monotony and isolation of motherhood. The land plays a significant role in the work, representing the many generations and long histories of this place.

Based on lived experience of loss, grief, near-death, and a multiple birth, through canvas and paint, Caitrian explores the workings of fragile, liminal spaces between life, death, birth, memory, and home. Dedicated to the memory of Kenzie MacNeil.

in the garden
Bree Hyland and Ian Funke-McKay

in the garden is a collection of recent works by visual artists Bree Hyland and Ian Funke-McKay — musings on growth, patience, colour, seasons, and time.

Ian shares a series of 12 virtual garden drawings framed in plastic and aluminum; with titles like Pasture on the Bay and Rainbow — these prints are composed from hand-drawn elements, grafted icons, shimmering silhouettes, and a synthesis of colour tuned to a frequency of nature, abundance, soils, skies, and creatures.

Bree approaches her work like a visual journal, inspired by everyday observations, popular culture, and ancient art. In this selection of works on paper and hand-built sculpture, Bree’s direct, playful, and expressive compositions give a glimpse of the artists overture including flowers, birds, cats, and glamorous figures. Reminiscent of billboards, posters, or comic strips, the oil paintings on paper form a colourful collection of works.

Double Song-Portrait (X)
Erik Moskowitz and Amanda Trager

Double Song-Portrait (X) — conversations, stories, oral histories.

Recordings, set to music and song, layering, and unfolding.

A song-exchange between Theresa Brewster and Father Stanley MacDonald. Exploring relationships between people, places, and histories, within communities.

Double Song-Portrait (X) brings Brewster and MacDonald into an exchange, realized by the viewer’s own movements in the gallery space. This is a work that considers multiple perspectives: that of the artists, their interview-subjects, and the audience. The work posits a shifting, entangled identity between the interview-subjects; the incommensurability of their lives remains, however, in the details of their separate words and lyrics.

About Eltuek Arts Centre

Eltuek Arts Centre, a 36,000 square foot arts centre in Sydney’s North End, aspires to provide artists and the community with an open, vibrant, creative, supportive, and experimental space for arts and social change.

Our mission is to make space that nurtures creation, connects artists with each other and with the community, and invites engagement with the arts as a means of individual and community empowerment for a more honest and just society.

A contemporary space. A creative community to inspire artists, residents, and visitors. Artist-led and artist-focused.

Eltuek (el-du-eg) is a Mi’kmaw word that means “We are making (it) together.” The (it) refers to whatever it is (we) decide to make – art, ideas, music, community, social change. Eltuek Arts Centre is accessible, inclusive, and continuous.

Eltuek features artist studios, Open Studio for shared artist workspaces, gallery and exhibition spaces, the Café Marie and Meals on Wheels, Nova Scotia Community College Music Arts Program, Celtic Colours International Festival, Nova Stream, and The Coast 89.7 FM Radio Station.

Eltuek Arts Centre logo