Brittany MacLean can’t remember a time when she wasn’t passionate about art.
Whether she was making pictures come to life as a student in Thessalon or creating large-scale and complex abstracts in her adult years, the now professional has grown an immense appreciation for the solace and comfort the craft has provided her with.
“Drawing was just something I felt I had to do,” she told SooToday. “Art is such a meditative process. It really forces me to be present, and I get to really dial in, which I feel like nowadays we don’t really get that opportunity as much. It’s very mesmerizing and therapeutic to do this work.”
Now a resident in Sault Ste. Marie, MacLean has had a residency for the past year inside the Art Hub at Spring, a downtown exhibition space that promotes local artists and boasts nearly a dozen working art studios.
She’s looking forward to hosting her first-ever solo show at the hub next month called “Pattern Recognition” which will feature a series of her works dating as far back as 10 years ago.
As a young girl growing up in a friendly area of 1,400, the idea of facilitating her own art exhibition in a city with 50 times the population was nearly unimaginable.
But in two weeks, that dream becomes a reality.
“Ever since I was a kid, I was always drawing and getting involved with arts,” she said. “I didn’t want to play with Barbies – I always wanted to draw. The teachers in Thessalon in the 90s were magical, and the opportunities we had in public school to do different art projects were really awesome.”
After graduating high school, MacLean got serious about her passion and attended a studio-based fine arts program for three years at Fanshawe College in London, Ont.
She was the only person from northern Ontario in her class.
“My world was shaken up in the most beautiful way,” she said. “I went from being good at drawing and painting pictures as a kid to learning about different art movements, conceptual art, print making, photography, and art history. It was really cool.”
After earning her diploma in London, MacLean moved out east and attended the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design – Canada’s oldest autonomous art school.
In 2013, the Thessalon native completed her degree and earned a Bachelors of Fine Arts.
“When you’re growing up and you want to pursue art, people are usually asking you if you want to be a doctor or veterinarian,” MacLean said. “But I just always stuck to doing my thing. There was a lot of encouragement around me for sure and I had tons of support.”
Establishing a name for herself and growing connections in the local art scene since moving to the Sault several years ago, MacLean has been blown away by the talent she’s come across.
“There’s a lot of artists doing really cool things here, and it’s so important for our society, especially for kids, to experience it,” she said. “If kids come and see some cool art that’s really different, you never know how that could inspire their future.”
MacLean is hoping to spread some of that inspiration when she presents her “Pattern Recognition” series inside the Art Hub at Spring on Feb. 15.
Running from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., her series will include upwards of 10 pieces that feature organic shapes created by pouring paint onto raw canvas.
“There’s automatic drawings of reoccurring lines that delicately echo the natural forms, and a visual space that is both psychological in feeling and natural in appearance,” she explained. “My goal is to get someone to look for more than five seconds. They’re abstract but they feel kind of familiar.”
The Thessalon-grown artist estimates the smaller pieces in her series took between two and three weeks to complete, while the larger paintings took months.
Although she’s been battling through a repetitive motion injury in her drawing hand, MacLean isn’t letting anything get in the way of creating and sharing the beauties and complexities of her craft.
“I’ve learned to deal with it and I’m not afraid to continue practicing,” she said. “It’s a time consuming and a detailed process, but it’s really enjoyable too.”
“If you haven’t been to an art show or it’s not something you normally do, it can be kind of intimidating,” she added. “But people are so excited to talk about the art they’re doing, and you never know the stories you’re going to learn. It’s all about coming together as a community to experience things.”
MacLean's "Pattern Recognition" art exhibition will run from Feb. 15 to Mar. 4.