Artist in Residence
An Artist in Residence program invites artists from various mediums to create, or continue, a body of work. The public is often able to engage with the artist through open studio hours, an artist talk or exhibition. The Creative Pictou County Studio welcomes artists who live locally as well as those visiting the county.
Jaclyn Dionne | July 6-11, 2026
Jaclyn Dionne is a versatile artist based in Wallace, Nova Scotia, whose creative journey has traversed a wide range of materials and techniques. With a robust background in the arts, she has honed her skills in various disciplines, from fabric arts to metal clay work, with skills from graphic design to rug hooking. Her multifaceted expertise has culminated in a focus on painting, where she employs acrylics to bring her vibrant visions to life. Jaclyn is known for her spirited paintings that capture the essence of nature through voluptuous bouquets, intricate botanicals, and imaginative landscapes. Her signature style is marked by a harmonious palette of colours, confidently applied with bold brushstrokes. This technique, layered over colourful stains, results in pieces that are both energy-filled and visually captivating.
During her residency, Jaclyn plans to to explore the realm of abstraction, expanding her creative horizons through the use of fluid acrylics and a broader array of mediums. This shift in concept aims to add a new dimension to her work, allowing her to experiment with abstraction to add fluidity to her work in a fresh series that will take shape during her residency.
Jaclyn’s ambition to incorporate abstraction into her art marks a significant evolution in her practice. By embracing new techniques and mediums, she seeks to push the boundaries of her creative expression, offering audiences an expanded view of her artistic capabilities. Her residency promises to be a period of innovation and growth, setting the stage for an exciting new chapter in her career.
Colour Share
What’s on your palette? A session for both experienced and beginner painters; join artist Jaclyn Dionne for Colour Share a demonstration and discussion on how artists find ways to maximize the use of paint colours to best express ourselves.
COLOUR When Jaclyn was learning to paint, she was taught to use a limited primary palette. Liking the challenge of the restriction, yet at the same time reeling against the constraint, Jaclyn adopted a split primary limited palette. Then, during a colour mixing session Jaclyn had an “aha” moment such that she now uses a palette colour system she calls a Sliding-Scale primary palette. Jaclyn finds that this system gives her incredible colour versatility while maintaining a sense of colour harmony on her canvases.
SHARE Jaclyn will share by demonstrating her Sliding-Scale palette and then wants you to share your colour story along with tips and tricks for how you manage colour. Are you a straight from the tube painter? Do you mix a colour before every brush stroke? Do you own every paint colour available? Are you mystified and overwhelmed by it all?
Let’s share what we’ve learned with each other so that we have some new ideas to take home to our painting practice.
