Many who were paying attention to Canadian art in the 1990s will remember images of Colleen Wolstenholme’s pill sculptures and jewellery. The work seemed to be everywhere: on the cover of C Magazine, but also in the pages of Psychology Today and in The Guardian. The work tapped into the zeitgeist, reaching beyond the borders of the art world, which is one of the hardest achievements for a contemporary artist.
She has lived all over Canada, and spent much time in New York, but Colleen Wolstenholme remains an Atlantic Canadian artist, one whose career is integral to the renaissance of contemporary art in this region since the 1990s. She was the Atlantic nominee for the inaugural Sobey Art Award. Her work has been collected by all three major Maritime art institutions, the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, and the Confederation Centre Art Gallery, and is regularly on view in permanent collection exhibitions in all three. Her work is also included in other public and private collections, including the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the National Gallery of Canada. She grew up in Nova Scotia and now lives in New Brunswick.
The full-career survey exhibition Hyperobjectivity: Colleen Wolstenholme Works 1992-2025 includes sculpture, painting, drawing, jewellery, textiles, photography, mixed-media collages, and multi-media installations. The exhibition was curated by Ray Cronin for the Beaverbrook Art Gallery’s Marion McCain Institute for Atlantic Canadian Art.
Artwork: Colleen Wolstenholme, Hexography.
