BIOGRAPHY

Vicky Lentz is a distinguished and award-winning artist, mentor, instructor, and arts advocate who was recognized as the 2022 Prix Éloizes, Artist of the Year in the Visual Arts. Born in Ontario, Lentz has had an illustrious career in the arts that spans over 25 years.Her extensive contributions to the arts community have earned her numerous accolades and recognition.

She has served on several prominent committees and boards, both provincially and nationally, as a voice for the arts. In 2022, she was awarded the Queen Elizabeth Platinum Jubilee Medal for her outstanding achievements.Lentz’s work has been exhibited in numerous group and solo exhibitions in Canada and internationally and been selected for prestigious exhibitions such as the Marion McCain Exhibition of Contemporary Atlantic Art in 2019. Her work was also purchased for the NB Art Bank in 2018.

At the core of her rich and diverse, multi-media practice lies an exploration of the intricate relationship between humans and the environment. Lentz has received numerous research and creation grants from Artsnb and the Canada Council. In 2019, she was honored with the Margaret Nae Mentorship Award by the Sheila Hugh MacKay Foundation.

Having both studied and taught the arts at the university and college level, Vicky Lentz actively seeks opportunities for advanced study with esteemed artists across North America. She has completed several artist residencies and taken up crucial curatorial and mentorship roles for New Brunswick artists with CraftNB, ArtsLink, and the AAAPNB.

Vicky Lentz currently lives and maintains a full-time studio practice in Edmundston, NB, where she continues to inspire and support the arts community through her exceptional talent and unwavering dedication.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Listening to the Living World
An art practice grounded in close observation, material exploration, and reverence for the natural world.

My work is rooted in a direct relationship with the living world—an act of listening grounded in reverence and sustained through making. Working across painting, mixed media, and exploratory processes, my practice moves fluidly between observation and abstraction. The work unfolds through material inquiry and sustained attention, allowing meaning to surface through the quiet exchange between observation, intuition, and the language of materials.

Connection lies at the heart of my practice: connection to place, to objects, to process, and to the experience of looking. Whether working from direct observation or through intuitive investigation, I approach each piece with curiosity, allowing materials, time, and resistance to shape the outcome. Surfaces gather traces and patina, bearing witness to duration and to cycles of emergence, erosion, and return.

Creativity, for me, is a form of listening that unfolds through repetition, risk, and reflection. Meaning emerges through the delicate interactions of materials, mark-making, and the rhythms of attention. Each work holds space for quiet discovery, where subtle shifts, textures, and gestures can speak. In this attentiveness, the viewer is invited to slow down, look closely, and experience the quiet vitality of the living world.