Curious about local art? We are too!

When it comes to the arts, Nova Scotia is spoiled for talent, and we're pleased to feature local art in many of our Library spaces.

From The Sunroom at Central Library to art displayed in our branches, we want to give local artists space to connect with our community and share their vision.

Current exhibits

The Sunroom at Central Library

On display August 23 through October 3, 2026

Swallowed Whole by Rebecca Fisk

Swallowed Whole is a provocative self-portrait series that confronts the intersection of race, food, and cultural stereotype. Through striking compositions, monochromatic skin tones, and vivid symbolism, these works explore how food—particularly fast food and sweets—has been weaponized, exoticized, and commodified in ways that often reduce racialized bodies to caricature or consumption.

Using exaggerated hand gestures, confrontational gazes, and visual codes like the KFC bucket or licorice candies, this series challenges viewers to reflect on how race is packaged, consumed, and digested in both literal and metaphorical ways.

Food is never just food. It is culture, survival, memory—but also stereotype. This body of work questions how Black and racialized identities are flattened through media imagery and cultural shorthand, particularly around food tropes. The greasy drumstick. The "sweet" girl. The offering hand. These recurring elements evoke loaded narratives: from minstrelsy to welfare tropes to colonial fantasies.

By painting the skin tones in grayscale, the works resist immediate racial categorization, forcing the viewer to confront the signs and symbols that create racial meaning. Goggles, oversized hands, and theatrical gestures call attention to performance—how racial identity is often constructed for the consumption of others.

Each piece speaks to how the simple act of eating becomes political when the body consuming is marked by race.

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Alderney Gate Public Library

Information on next display coming soon.

Captain William Spry Public Library

Information on next display coming soon.

Cole Harbour Public Library

On display October through December, 2026

Brush & Batik by Andrea Landry & Jay Walmsley

Andrea Landry is a self-taught artist from Lake Echo, who works in acrylic and occasionally goache.  She sketched frequently throughout her childhood but that then took a backseat to family and career.  It wasn't until 2020 that she picked up a brush for the first time and participated in a virtual paint night.  For the next two years, Andrea watched countless YouTube videos and painted along to many of them.  She now works from photos she has taken and is developing a deeper appreciation for the beautiful planet we live on and finding endless inspiration.  It's an occasion for her to share what she finds beautiful in the ordinary.  She gravitates to landscapes, enjoys unique subjects like colourful sneakers and capturing people doing everyday things.

Andrea brings a crisp style with a focus on light, shadow and depth.

Andrea is a member of Dartmouth Visual Arts Society and has sat on the board as Exhibits Coordinator for the last three years.

Jay Walmsley is a retired aquatic ecologist, turned batik artist, living in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Originally from South Africa, she took art as a high school matriculation subject, and after university, studied art part time as a hobby, with Mimi van der Merwe in Pretoria, South Africa. She mostly did acrylic painting, print techniques (e.g., etching, linocut, collagraphy) and papier mâché. After moving to Canada in 2003, she focused on her scientific career and family, and it was only during the COVID pandemic that she turned to batik as an artistic outlet and has been creating batik paintings since 2023.

Batik is a textile art using a wax-resist technique and colourful dyes. Wax is applied to areas of fabric to resist dye, allowing one to build layered colours, intricate motifs, and characteristic crackle effects. Batik is most famously associated with Indonesia, especially Java, but has been practiced across Asia and Africa, to produce traditional patterns. Jay has been experimenting with various natural fabrics (cotton/silk weaves), waxes, and dyes to create paintings, rather than traditional batik designs.

Most of Jay’s inspiration comes from the natural world, with its beautiful and intriguing forms and colours. She currently has a special interest in the repeat patterns one sees in nature, marine creatures and their homes, and the incredible variety of birds and their plumage. She has an eye for the perfection seen in smaller things, such as the underside of mushrooms, the spirals in a shell or the wings of a dragonfly. Batik techniques add a vibrancy to these subjects and the small imperfections that are natural to the technique seem to add, rather than detract, from the final outcome.

J.D. Shatford Memorial Public Library

Information on next display coming soon.

Keshen Goodman Public Library

Information on next display coming soon.

Musquodoboit Harbour Public Library

Information on next display coming soon.

Sackville Public Library

Information on next display coming soon.

Tantallon Public Library

On display October 2026

Art by Melanie Park

Melanie initially started her adult life in culinary arts. A freak accident cut this path short, and it was time to reinvent herself. She went back to school, earning 2 diplomas, then two degrees and started working on a professional designation. A move to Halifax gave her career path a new trajectory. All seemed to be moving along swimmingly, when we were thrown another curve ball - the COVID-19 pandemic. To keep from going insane, Melanie purchased some acrylic paints and started painting random pieces of lumber found in the yard from a previous building project. What fun! She was hooked! Her pieces are bright and bold, and created with the purpose of bringing a smile to your face. She paints stuff on other stuff.

Welcome to The Mutant Local – All are welcome!

Woodlawn Public Library

On display August through October, 2026

Art by Lisa Richard

Lisa Richard is a successful artist who lives in Dartmouth, NS. Lisa has been painting for the past number of years, inspired by her late grandfather, Lawrence McAvoy, who was a well-known Halifax artist. Lisa works in both acrylic and watercolours. She has participated in several local art shows and is a member of Dartmouth Visual Arts and Creative Spirit East. 

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