Owens Art Gallery

10/13/2026

🖼️ Jeff Burns paints landscapes, but not always ones you would recognize.

Exploring metaphors for human involvement in natural systems, Burns’s landscapes often combine real and imagined elements with imagery from microscopy, aerial photography, the health sciences, and biology. The resulting paintings expand our notion of landscapes by asking us to read unrecognizable, yet vaguely familiar forms.

Take a close look at his curiosity-inducing painting Untitled (2002) in the exhibition a rush of friendship for stones and grasses, on view until December 13, 2026.

📸: Jeff Burns. Untitled, 2002, oil on canvas, Collection of the Owens Art Gallery. Purchased with financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts Acquisition Assistance Program and the Friends of the Owens Art Gallery.

10/11/2026

🍁 The Owens will be closed Monday 12 October in observance of Thanksgiving.

We hope you are out and about enjoying the incredible crimson, scarlet, and golden fall colours this long weekend, just like Christian McKiel would have, before painting this vibrant landscape.

📸: Christian McKiel, untitled, n.d. oil on board, 30.3 x 40.6 cm. Gift of Margaret Patricia Eaton ('69). Collection of the Owens Art Gallery, Mount Allison University

10/10/2026

📝 What does it take to keep the Owens thriving for 130 years?

Find out by taking a look inside our latest annual report to learn about a year of exhibitions, programs, and research celebrating our past, present, and future of art education at the Owens.

From collection acquisitions and publications, to community outreach and digital engagement, explore the milestones, impact, and programs that shaped our 2025-2026 reporting year.

Read the annual report @https://owensartgallery.com/annualreports/OwensAnnualReport2025-2026.pdf (link in bio)

🌈 Cover image: Leah Garnett, The sunlight that curved to meet me, 2018, site-specific installation. Courtesy of the artist.

10/09/2026

🙌 Welcome Elliot Travers, the Owens' new J.E.A. Crake ArtsWork Intern: Teeny Tiny Zine Library Assistant!

Elliot is a third-year student at Mount Allison, pursuing Bachelor of Fine Arts with minors in Visual and Material Culture Studies & Museum and Curatorial Studies. Over the next academic year, Elliot will help with all things related to the Owens' zine library including its organization, displays, and related events (stay tuned to hear more about that in the new year).

The J.E.A. Crake ArtsWork Internship program is intended to provide Mount Allison students with opportunities for experiential learning and to enable them to explore career options in the arts. It is generously funded by the J.E.A. Crake Foundation.

10/08/2026

🚫🦆 NO DUCKS is back with new exhibition reviews by three emerging art critics!

Since its creation in 2020, No Ducks: Emerging Art Critics at the Owens Art Gallery has taken several different formats, but exhibition reviews have remained a mainstay of the journal. As a literary form, the exhibition review is an excellent way for emerging writers to hone their craft. Short word limits require clarity of thought and sharp sentences, while the editorial process underlines the importance of tracking changes, fact checking, and following house styles.

In this issue of No Ducks, students Grace Farella (Class of 2026), Chloé MacKinnon, and Veronica Wry try their hand at writing exhibition reviews — all for the first time.

🔗✨ Dig into their reviews @

No Ducks was created during the COVID-19 pandemic, thanks to funding from the J.E.A. Crake Foundation. Our mission is to publish and promote diverse student and emerging art writers and critics with ties to Mount Allison University and the Atlantic Region.

10/07/2026

🎤 Open Call: An Evening of Performance Art

In collaboration with artist Jerry Ropson, we're seeking proposals for an evening of performance art, to be held at the Owens Friday, 6 November 2026 at 7:00 pm.

Organized in conjunction with the exhibition Jerry Ropson: a place of safety, this special event will mark the 30th anniversary of You Put Me High (Upon a Pedestal), the first performance art symposium co-organized by Struts Gallery and the Owens Art Gallery in November 1996. The Symposium of Art was held annually until 2011.

Artists and community members interested in participating in this event should send a short proposal to the address below before 5:00 pm on Monday October 19, 2026.

[email protected]
Please use the subject line Performance Art.
Proposals should not be longer than a single page.
Full details linked in bio

📸: Photo by Annie France Noël

10/06/2026

🌱 Shift your perspective, slow down, and consider what lies just below your feet in the exhibition ‘a rush of friendship for stones and grasses’.

Taking inspiration from the hundreds of precisely rendered clovers and dandelions that speckle the lush grass in Alex Colville’s Athletes (1961), this exhibition brings together works that study, reinterpret, and immerse us in the (sometimes) overlooked worlds that exist at ground level.

Get lost in the weeds, explore tangles of undergrowth, and (metaphorically) touch grass in the exhibition, on view until 13 December.

10/05/2026

🐈 “The painting is sort of before and after my illness, and the theme of The Watcher came into it as a result of my illness and the fact that I was away from home for nearly two years and away from the cat and so on.” —Glenn Adams (1928-2011)

A wooden two-story house sits atop a gradual hill; the surrounding lawn sparse, yellowed, and dry. Inside the house, an orange cat sits patiently in the upstairs window.

Of all the paintings in the Owens collection, Glenn Adams’ The Watcher captured Grace Farella's attention because of his meticulous attention to detail, and the familiarity of her own orange cat waiting in her window too.

Read about Grace's affinity for The Watcher in a new Collection Highlight online now @ https://owensartgallery.com/owens/collection-highlight-glenn-adams-the-watcher/

📸 1: Grace with The Watcher, 1976-1983 in the Owens Painting Vault
2: Glenn Adams, The Watcher, 1976-1983, acrylic on K3 board, 54.3 x 92.2 cm. Collection of the Owens Art Gallery. Gift of the Artist. © Glenn Adams Estate / CARCC Ottawa 2026

10/03/2026

🆕 New to the Owens Collection | It doesn't really matter (2026) by Aleya Michaud

Process is at the core of Aleya Michaud's work, viewing it as both a playground and a classroom.

Her approach begins with spontaneity, allowing simple marks of various mediums to guide her towards the final form of each piece. Exploring the relationship between her hands, mind, and heart, she fosters self-trust and extends these lessons to everyday life.

Aleya Michaud is a Black Acadian artist from Grand Falls, New Brunswick, now based in Riverview.

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Aleya Michaud, 'It doesn't really matter', 2026, oil stick on wood. Collection of the Owens Art Gallery.

10/02/2026

🌟 Conservation Lab Intern Louisa is back and working away on many projects down in the Lab.

One of her current projects includes working on repairing this gold frame, which is in need of a fair amount of TLC (tender loving conservation, that is).

Using special gold wax she is building up a damaged corner, shaping the wax with a hot tool to match the pattern. Later she will tone the surface to perfectly match the rest of the frame.