FREDERICTON.- As the Beaverbrook Art Gallery celebrates the first 60 years of its history and embarks on its future, a new exhibition highlights a present moment of visual art.

The Beaverbrook Art Gallery hosts forty-one works of art in a dynamic and engaging exploration of a current trend of artistic practice in the Atlantic region. Materiality and Perception in Contemporary Atlantic Art, the Beaverbrook’s 2019 Marion McCain Exhibition of Atlantic Art, presents one work from each of forty-one artists selected by exhibition curator and Gallery Director/CEO, Thomas Smart.

The exhibition will be open to the public starting October 20.

“This exhibition highlights wonderfully vibrant and dynamic themes in the contemporary art practice of the region we are privileged to inhabit,” says exhibition curator Tom Smart. “Selecting the art has been a tremendously exciting process, and I look forward to welcoming all Atlantic Canadians to share in a pride of this region and of its artists.”

Materiality and Perception in Contemporary Atlantic Art is the latest in this important series of exhibitions dating back to 1987. The first three exhibitions focused on New Brunswick artists; later exhibitions broadened in scope to incorporate all four Atlantic provinces, and were organized by guest curators. The series was most recently relaunched in 2015 with the support of the McCain families, of the Harrison McCain Foundation, and of The McCain Foundation.

“This exhibition reflects my mother’s abiding interest in how art and decorative arts are expressive agents for the individuals creating them,” writes Ann McCain Evans. “They are also ways for viewers to explore both how the objects themselves, and the materials from which they are made change the way we see ourselves and our world.”

Materiality and Perception in Contemporary Atlantic Art will be on public view from October 20, 2019 through January 26, 2020. The exhibition is curated by Tom Smart and organized by the Beaverbrook Art Gallery.