Hey Folks! As you may know this past weekend was NOCTURNE 2025! We had 3 new bodies of work on display at the gallery by Belle, DeMont, Amy Ordoveza and Mindy Harris. Each with a story to tell.
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| Belle DeMont, The 3 Ravens, Oil on Canvas, 20"x23" |
Belle DeMont debuted her first solo showcase with us during Nocturne. Titled: When the Veil is at its Thinnest, Belle explores a time when the boundary between this life and the next is said to grow thin. Rooted in the weeks surrounding Samhain, these paintings come from that quiet seasonal space where fog settles, the light shifts, and the natural world seems to pause.
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| Belle DeMont, The Sea Witch, Oil on Canvas, 48"x60" |
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| Belle DeMont, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Oil on Canvas, 20"x24" - Seen with AR text |
In this series, DeMont explores a liminal space, a borderland between reality and dreams, where the veil between the visible and invisible begins to wear away. DeMont aims to invite viewers into moments of stillness, reflecting the quiet transitions that come with the changing seasons. She is drawn to these in-between spaces, where the ordinary world begins to feel sacred. It’s during this time of year that she feels most tuned into the land around her, and most able to respond to it through paint.
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| Belle DeMont, The Weird Sisters, Oil on Canvas, 11"x14" |
Come see the show! It will be on display until November 5th or you can view it online
HERE
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| Amy Ordoveza, Lady Slippers with Bumblebee, Gouache on Paper, 7"x10" |
We also had a brand new collection of work from Amy Ordoveza titled: Under the Forest Canopy.
Over the course of late spring, summer, and early autumn, Amy has been making a series
of visits to forested areas in the Halifax region. Finding places where she can closely observe the
flora and fauna of the forest floor, and pause there to quietly sit and experience the sights,
sounds, and atmosphere of the forest respectfully, taking care to avoid disrupting the plants
and animals in their habitat. She records what she notices in small sketches and gouache
studies done on the spot.
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| Amy Ordoveza, Asters and Bumblebee, Gouache on Paper, 5"x7" |
Ordoveza has drawn inspiration for these paintings from the Sottobosco, a sub‐genre of still‐life
painting that became popular in the Netherlands in the 17th Century, practiced by artists such
as Rachel Ruysch and Marsius Van Schreick. In their depictions of the forest floor Ruysch and
Van Schreick offer the viewer a wealth of textures of tree stumps, moss, mushrooms, and
prickly thistles. In this shadowy setting, lizards, snakes, and toads face off with each other and
hunt butterflies and other insects; all the drama one might find in a history painting is present
on a microscale.
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| Amy Ordoveza, Dragonfly and Sweatbee, Gouache on Paper, 7"x5" |
While we now live in a very different time and place, Ordoveza sees qualities
and themes in these paintings that she brings to her own work as she paints local,
contemporary sottoboschi: the importance of direct, close observation of nature, the theme of
regeneration and renewal, conflict present in a microcosm, and the significance of small
creatures.
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| Amy Ordoveza, Forest Light Study, Gouache on Paper, 5"x7" |
See all the details in person or check out the full collection online
HERE
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| Mindy Harris, the Public Gardens, Hand Embroidery on Linen, 24" Diameter |
Last but not least we have the incredibly detailed work of Mindy Harris.
In a world plagued by threats of environmental collapse, pandemics hold us hostage and vulnerable, while outside our shuttered windows, the biota thrives. Science has a long history of organizing the world into predictable categories for easier comprehension and control, separating us from what we perceive to be simple life forms, but what if we approach our biological limitations with acceptance rather than fear?
An Immense and Miraculous pattern is a collection of Embroideries that aim to challenge the
binaries between nature and civilization, self and other. Inspired by ancient myth and modern
anxieties, Mindy uses Hybrids to examine our uneasy relationship with the natural world and
the artificial boundaries we draw between ourselves and other fauna.
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| Mindy Harris, Peggy's Cove, Hand Embroidery on Linen, 21" Diameter |
Armed with equal parts evolutionary proposal and dark humor, her work invites reflection on environment, mortality, and the narratives we use to understand and accept the world around us.
An Immense and Miraculous Pattern leans into the absurd to highlight the importance of
changing course, asking if transformation is the key to survival or if the notion of humans
finding harmony with nature is just as frivolous. Borrowing from mythology, science fiction, and
natural history, Harris endeavors to disrupt the margins between past and present, fiction and
future.
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| Mindy Harris, Citadel Hill, Hand Embroidery on Linen, 16" Diameter |
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| Mindy Harris, Three Sisters (based on the rock formation in Advocate Harbour) , Hand Embroidery on Linen, 24" Diameter |
To see everything up close and personal drop by the gallery before November 5th or see it online
HERE
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