HALIFAX.- Nova Scotia artist Eleanor King finds inspiration in the everyday – those deceptively mundane, overlooked aspects of modern life. An exhibition of her work at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, features a combination of previous and new works.

“Eleanor King is the kind of artist that particularly excites us here at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia,” said Ray Cronin, Director and CEO of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. “She shows us that Nova Scotia innovates in art as well as in other areas of endeavour.”

King’s work frequently responds to places or situations; it concerns the past and the present, the lost and the found, the individual and the collective. This exhibition features a painting called Deepwater Horizon, which the artist is creating on the gallery’s walls. Based on an aerial perspective of the Eastern seaboard, this wall painting draws upon the area’s age-old connection to the ocean as well as the present-day impact of extracting oil, gas, and other resources. It also acknowledges the influence of Minimalism and Hard-edge painting on her practice. She has created similar works in other galleries, including Rocky Point, 2014, at the Confederation Centre of the Arts Art Gallery, whose shapes and colours echo history of the place, including its origins as Mi’kmaq land, and its role as the departure point for local Acadians during the expulsion in 1748.

The Hubbards native often uses more than one practice to convey her message, combining sculpture, sound, video, and two-dimensional media. Performance – King is also a drummer a band called Wet Denim -- is a significant part of her work as an artist, and music is hinted at in works like including CD Worm, 2014, a stack of CDs suspended from the wall on a braided hose and Wormhole series, 2013- present, drawings created using a CD and coloured pencils. Music will also be part of the exhibition in Dark Utopian, 2015, a new audio work.

King’s approach is playful yet political, and her works addressing artistic, social and civic concerns have been on view in Halifax as part of Nocturne 2012 and in past exhibitions at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and other venues.

She is pursuing her ideas this winter as a Fulbright scholar, doing graduate work at the State University of New York’s Purchase College, where she is researching Planned Obsolescence: Examining Disposable Culture and The Consumer through Visual Art.