A New Artistic Journey in PEI

From Big City to Artistic Serenity

A visit to Sabrina’s art gallery on Grafton Street revealed an intimate space housing oil paintings, watercolour and ink paintings, photography works by local Chinese artists, and a select collection by European and North American artists. Students gathered around a table to receive lessons from an art instructor. Exquisite postcards of varying styles and eras were on display at a stand near the front door.

Sabrina landed in PEI a few hours before a snowstorm in February 2022. Originally from China, she studied in the United States, and studied art in England before immigrating to Canada. She had worked in management and oversaw the stock market listings of the company she worked for at that time. “We worked in a big city and did not like the traffic. We wanted to try new things in a quiet place,” she says.

An immersion into the British visual art scene helped shape her business plan, which she is now implementing. The Sunday summer market in downtown Charlottetown has helped to spread the word and works of Vneed Art Gallery. “The people who visited our stall were happy to see the different artworks, including my daughter’s digital illustration,” she says.

Building Connections Through Art and Culture

Coming to PEI has been an opportunity to fulfill a life-long creative ambition. Her husband worked as a statistician but is the more artistic of the duo; he creates some of the art that adorns the gallery’s walls. Sabrina applies her management skills and experience to the gallery's operations. Sabrina’s cosmopolitan experience and perspective is already paying off. This past summer, Vneed Art Gallery held an exhibition at The Guild in Charlottetown featuring works of young artists with a collection that included landscapes, seascapes, and portraiture. This was well-received, and plans are currently in motion for another exhibition in a private house with a view of the sea. This intimate exhibition is titled “Painting and the Stories Behind,” and artists will share their aesthetic and life philosophies as influenced by Eastern and Western cultures. Guests will have the opportunity to experience a Chinese tea ceremony.

Sabrina notes the importance of connections especially in a new place and she says, “PEI Connectors provides useful information and the more I attend their events, the more benefits I get.”