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Adam Gunn was surprised to learn last week that his painting might be among the last added to the Nova Scotia Art Bank. His work was showcased alongside other 2025 purchases.
Established in 1975, the Art Bank includes more than 2,000 pieces from artists in the province. In March, the province cancelled $40,000 in funding the program was set to receive for the 2026-27 fiscal year.
“That was a bad decision,” said Gunn, who received $750 when the province added his plein air painting Sundown on Caribou Island to its collection.
He said the program keeps Nova Scotian art in the province and makes it accessible to the public.
For Claire McNamara, another artist featured in the 2025 intake, the recognition came with mixed emotions.
“As an emerging artist, to have a kind of provincial stamp of approval kind of means the world,” she said. “It’s kind of overwhelmingly bittersweet. To know that it is not supported at all right now is kind of devastating and heartbreaking.”
Bryson Chisholm works as a set painter in the province’s film industry and says when the province first bought his work in 2017, it was a catalyst that helped him take himself seriously as a professional artist.
Last year, the province paid him $4,000 for his painting Blanket in an Acre — his fourth to be included in the collection. It was a surprise, he says, when partway through the application cycle for 2026, the program was cancelled.
“Any future Art Bank purchases would depend on available funding, which is considered through the annual budget process,” Rob Maguire, director of communications for the Department of Community, Culture, Tourism and Heritage, said in an email last week.
Krista-Leigh Davis’ The Ice Spirits was one of the 10 works inducted into the Nova Scotia Art Bank last year. (Arts Nova Scotia)
The collection holds more than a century’s worth of Nova Scotian art, including pieces by Alex Colville and Tom Forrestall. Forty-nine works made between 1920 and 1938 by W.R. MacAskill — whose photograph of the Bluenose was used for a 50-cent postage stamp in 1929 — are included, too.
The Art Bank database still lists three Maud Lewis paintings it purchased in 1982 that were later discovered to be forgeries.
“It is meant to be seen and enjoyed by Nova Scotians as they go about their day-to-day lives,” said Arts Nova Scotia two years ago. Much of the work is displayed in public buildings and government offices.
“It’s been a huge, huge boost to my career,” said Eva McCauley, whose painting Quarry Swimmers at Night was among last year’s purchases. Her painting Splendid Isolation (Neon Night Sky) was acquired in 2022.
McCauley said knowing her work is going into offices across the province makes her feel acknowledged as an artist.
Krista-Leigh Davis, a professional artist and NSCAD instructor, says while her students give her hope for the future of art in Nova Scotia, losing the Art Bank is a disheartening blow.
When she moved back to the province a few years ago, she says, it felt like there was just enough public support for artists to thrive.
But she says she feels that support slipping and often wonders whether it makes sense to continue making art here, or if she’d have a better shot moving somewhere else.
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