Honouring High Achievers in the Arts

There are few better demonstrations of New Brunswick’s extraordinary cultural strength than the Lieutenant Governor’s Awards for High Achievement in the Arts, the province’s most prestigious recognition of artistic excellence. This November, the wonderful people at the New Brunswick Arts Board (artsnb) will celebrate four artists whose creativity, courage and commitment have enriched not only this province, but the wider cultural landscape of Canada. On November 7, 2026, artists, cultural leaders and invited guests will gather at the Lieutenant Governor’s residence in Fredericton for a gala event hosted by the Honourable Louise Imbeault, Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick, honouring the recipients of the 2026 Lieutenant Governor’s Awards for High Achievement in the Arts: Dyane Léger, Carol Collicutt, Diane Losier and Shane Perley-Dutcher.

Thanks to presenting partner UNI Coopération financière, the celebration will recognize outstanding achievement in four distinct categories, Literary Arts, Performing Arts, Visual Arts and Indigenous Artist. Presented every two years, these prestigious awards honour artists who have distinguished themselves through the excellence, significance and enduring impact of their work. The stature of these awards becomes immediately apparent when considering the extraordinary company in which the 2026 laureates now find themselves. Previous recipients include some of the most celebrated and influential creative figures to emerge from Atlantic Canada, among them Beth Powning, Roméo Savoie, Patrick Clark, Edith Butler, Igor Dobrovolskiy and Marie-Hélène Allain. It is a remarkable roll call of artists whose work has travelled far beyond provincial borders while remaining deeply connected to the people, places, languages and cultures of New Brunswick. Since its inception in 1991, artsnb has played an indispensable role in nurturing, supporting and celebrating the province’s artists, and the Lieutenant Governor’s Awards represent a particularly powerful expression of that mission. Here at [EDIT], where celebrating the extraordinary creative talent of Canada’s East Coast has always been fundamental to everything we do, we are immensely proud to introduce the four outstanding 2026 laureates.

LITERARY ARTS AWARD
DYANE LÉGER

There are writers who document a culture, and there are those rare writers whose work becomes part of the culture itself. Dyane Léger belongs to the latter tradition. A pioneering voice in Acadian literature, Léger has spent a remarkable career exploring language, landscape, ancestry and belonging, creating work that is at once intensely personal and inseparable from the place from which it emerged.

Poet, author and fearless explorer of the possibilities of language, Léger draws inspiration from the landscapes inherited from her ancestors and from a profound connection to books, forests, animals and those who move quietly through the world. Hers is an artistic practice rooted in observation but propelled by curiosity. From her own self-described hideaway, she continues an apparently inexhaustible pursuit of what she beautifully describes as an understanding of “the alphabet and of beauty.” For Léger, resistance, audacity, courage and freedom are intertwined, while poetry itself is something more elemental: “a vibration that allows one to inhabit oneself, that allows one to love and to dream.”

Léger was the first Acadian poet to be published in 1980, by the newly founded Éditions Perce-Neige, the celebrated Moncton publishing house that would become an essential force in Acadian literature. Her place within that literary tradition is therefore not simply as a participant but as one of the figures who helped create the space in which generations of writers could subsequently flourish.

With Mayday, her sixth collection of poetry and ninth book, Léger continues that extraordinary journey through words and the worlds they contain. Her work reminds us that literature can preserve memory while simultaneously creating something entirely new. The recognition of Dyane Léger with the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for High Achievement in the Arts celebrates not merely an exceptional body of work, but a writer whose courage, imagination and singular voice have helped shape the literary landscape of Acadie itself.

VISUAL ARTS AWARD
CAROL COLLICUTT

For more than four decades, Carol Collicutt has been an integral presence within New Brunswick’s visual arts community: an artist of extraordinary curiosity whose work demonstrates what can happen when materials, ideas and imagination are given the freedom to collide.

Working primarily across painting, sculpture, installation and photography, Collicutt has developed an artistic language distinguished by experimentation and an almost inexhaustible fascination with material. Found objects, collage, metal, photographs and marble dust find their way onto panel, paper, Mylar and canvas, creating works in which the possibilities of the materials themselves become part of the conversation.

Collicutt’s practice is built upon curiosity: looking again at familiar objects, surfaces and substances and considering what else they might become. In doing so, she embodies one of the great qualities of exceptional visual art: the ability to encourage us to see differently.

Throughout her career, she has also devoted considerable energy to supporting and strengthening the province’s wider arts sector. Through advocacy and service on arts boards, she has worked not simply to advance her own practice but to champion the conditions in which other artists and cultural organizations can succeed. It is a generosity of spirit that speaks volumes about her understanding of an artistic community as precisely that: a community.

The Lieutenant Governor’s Award for High Achievement in the Arts is therefore a fitting recognition of an artist whose influence can be found both in an extraordinary body of work and in the cultural ecosystem she has spent decades nurturing. Carol Collicutt represents the very best of New Brunswick’s creative spirit: restless, inventive, generous and continually evolving.

PERFORMING ARTS AWARD
DIANE LOSIER

Few performers become so deeply woven into the cultural fabric of a place that audiences feel they have grown up alongside them. Across an extraordinary career spanning four decades, Diane Losier has become precisely such a presence: actress, host and director, an artist of tremendous range whose work has enriched stages and screens throughout Acadie and far beyond.

On stage, she has delivered memorable performances in productions including Valentine, Laurie ou la vie de galerie, Crow Bar, Le club des éphémères and Wolfe. She is also beloved for her portrayal of Marie-Pet at Le Pays de la Sagouine, one of Atlantic Canada’s most important cultural institutions and a place where Acadian storytelling, language, music and theatrical tradition come to life.

Her talents have carried her equally naturally into musical theatre, with appearances in productions including Belles-soeurs, Louis Mailloux and Tracady Story, as well as the rock opera Viens avec moi with Les Hôtesses d’Hilaire and the cabaret production On a tous une Lydia Lee. It is an enviably diverse body of work, revealing an artist capable of moving between dramatic forms while bringing authenticity, intelligence and humanity to each.

That versatility has been equally evident on screen. Television audiences have seen Losier in Bedaine, Belle Baie, En résidence, Les Newbies, Le Siège, Samuel et la mer and Garde partagée. Her film credits include Le trou du cul du monde, Camion, Pour mieux t’aimer and Exiles. Each has contributed to a career that demonstrates both the richness of storytelling and the extraordinary calibre of artists working from this region.

The Lieutenant Governor’s Award for High Achievement in the Arts recognizes Diane Losier as one of New Brunswick’s outstanding performing artists: a storyteller whose work has entertained, moved and connected audiences while contributing immeasurably to the vitality of Acadian and New Brunswick culture.

INDIGENOUS ARTIST AWARD
SHANE PERLEY-DUTCHER

A mixed-media artist from Neqotkuk First Nation, Shane Perley-Dutcher discovered a passion for creativity at an early age. His artistic education has been shaped both by formal training and, crucially, by knowledge shared across generations. Over the years he has been mentored by Elders and artists from Indigenous communities, including learning the intricate art of basket weaving from renowned basket maker Veronica Atwin of Bilijk First Nation.

Perley-Dutcher subsequently studied at the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design, earning a diploma in Native Art Studies and Jewellery Manufacturing with honours and distinction. Today, his practice encompasses intricate custom jewellery, one-of-a-kind sculpture and basketry through Aduksis Jewellery Designs.

Materials are fundamental to his work. Birch, cedar, spruce, ash, copper, silver, gold and platinum provide not simply physical components but connections to land, knowledge and tradition. His designs draw upon Wolastoqiyik knowledge while embracing contemporary aesthetics, allowing the past and present to exist not in opposition but in conversation.

Authentic representation of Indigenous culture remains central to every aspect of Perley-Dutcher’s creative process. His connection to the land, his respect for traditional techniques and his determination to carry knowledge forward inform an artistic practice of exceptional substance.

In recognizing Shane Perley-Dutcher with the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for High Achievement in the Arts, New Brunswick celebrates an artist whose work demonstrates the extraordinary power of tradition when it is treated not as something frozen in history, but as living knowledge: resilient, adaptable and capable of inspiring generations yet to come.

ABOUT THE NEW BRUNSWICK ARTS BOARD

The New Brunswick Arts Board (artsnb) is an arm’s-length arts funding agency with a legislated mandate to facilitate and promote the creation of art and to administer funding programs for professional artists in the province. More information on programs is available at artsnb.ca.

To learn more about the awards, the 2026 laureates and the extraordinary work of the New Brunswick Arts Board (artsnb) in supporting and celebrating artists across the province, visit artsnb.ca