Image: Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton
The Beaverbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton will present ‘Communities’, an exhibition bringing together the work of four Atlantic Canadian artists whose practices use community as a central subject and strategy. The exhibition runs from September 12 through December 13, 2026, as a project of the Marion McCain Institute for Atlantic Canadian Art.
The exhibition features Guy Duguay, Letitia Fraser, Yvon Gallant and Nelson White. According to the gallery, their works create spaces of inclusion and recognition by examining the histories, cultures and social networks that shape communities across Atlantic Canada.
Duguay’s contribution centres on portraits of fellow Moncton artists and the Aberdeen Cultural Centre, capturing the artistic world that developed around the Moncton institution. The gallery describes Duguay as late and presents his work as a record of a particular artistic community and its relationships.
Gallant is represented by an ongoing series of Acadian portraits. Although the figures are faceless, the gallery characterizes them as instantly recognizable, making identity and collective cultural memory central to the series without relying on conventional individual portraiture.
White’s work celebrates Indigenous artists while addressing the changing cultural landscape of his home territory. Fraser, meanwhile, documents her family and Nova Scotia’s Black community, including the educators who helped shape it. Together, the four bodies of work connect personal histories with broader regional narratives.
An opening celebration is scheduled for September 12 at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery. The gallery’s September newsletter lists the event from 1 to 3 p.m. and describes it as free, with the artists’ work on display. One work identified in the exhibition material is Duguay’s ‘5 portraits d’artiste: Yvon Gallant’, a 1994 monotype on paper measuring 73.9 by 55.8 centimetres, acquired with funds from H. Harrison McCain.
