director
Lee McLean and mentor, Jennifer Lee Wiebe
Jennifer Lee Wiebe and Lee McLean, the first Mentorship pair of Connexion Exchange, will be working together from June 28th to September 28th.
Connexion Exchange is a 3-month mentorship program pairing nine emerging and mid-career New Brunswick artists with established Canadian art mentors for one-on-one mentorship. This program will run from June 2021 – June 2022. Mentorships will be completed online or in person, if possible. This program will culminate in a joint artist talk and the creation of an artwork. Over the course of each mentorship, updates of the pairs’ work will be shared. The gallery exhibition will take place after all the mentorships have been completed in the Fall of 2022.
Artist Biographies
Jennifer Lee Wiebe
Jennifer Lee Wiebe explores themes of language, identity, and privilege through the lens of dual citizenship in United States and Canada.
Recent work includes Lingua Franca Spoken Here performed in Gràcia, Barcelona Spain through her residency with JIWAR Creation and Society (2018), the Fredericton Arts Alliance, New Brunswick, Canada (2018), and The Bridge Project (2018), Fredericton, New Brunswick Canada. Her show Abstracts 1-12 debuted at the UNB Art Centre (2018), and her piece Klätta EAB (Emerald Ash Borer) (2018) was part of the group show Depository Park at the Lord Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, NB, Canada. The six large format canvases entitled “Scratch cards for the Apocalypse” opened virtually with the show Attending the Apocalypse at the University of New Brunswick Art Centre (2020), and in-person in the autumn of 2020, with support of the New Brunswick Arts Board.
Her work is held in private collections in the US and Canada, with the diptych “Dancers” currently included in the traveling educational series with the New Brunswick Arts Bank.
Jennifer Lee Wiebe graduated magna cum laude from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine in 1987, completing her MFA in Painting and Drawing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1993 and her MEd in Curriculum Studies with concentration in Creativity in 2019 (UNB, Fredericton, NB Canada).
Jen shares her time between Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada where she is the Studio Head for the Department of Drawing at the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design, and New England, USA.
Lee McLean
Textile artist Lee McLean creates contemporary artworks in fabric and thread. She is currently interested in the increasing invisibility in society as we age and the shrinking of the individual’s world. Emphasis on strong line, negative space, and asymmetry appeals to her, as does improvisational piecing with intent to create a particular mood or convey an idea. Her practice honours traditional craft techniques while exploring innovative composition.
Based in New Maryland, New Brunswick, McLean holds certificates in Foundation Visual Arts and Advanced Studio Practice from the New Brunswick College of Craft & Design. She is an active member of Studio Art Quilt Associates, an international organization that is dedicated to bringing thought-provoking, cutting-edge artwork to venues across the globe. Excited that she is proving that you can teach an old dog new tricks, one of her recently completed works, which was supported by an artsnb creation grant, is travelling across Canada as part of Crossroads: Grand National Fibre Art Exhibition.
She shares her process on Instagram @mclean.lee and can be found at leemclean.ca.