Swans in Emerald Featured on GBH’s Community Canvas

On April 17, 2026, I had the surreal experience of seeing one of my paintings larger than I ever could have imagined.

My painting Swans in Emerald was selected for GBH’s Community Canvas, an initiative presented by The Culture Showthat features work by local artists on GBH’s massive Digital Mural in Brighton.

Seeing a painting that began on a canvas in my studio suddenly displayed across the side of the GBH building was such an exciting moment. Naturally, I had to go see it in person—and take approximately a million photos underneath it.

Swans in Emerald depicts two swans floating together through green-blue water, surrounded by lily pads and reflections. GBH described the work as approaching “nature from a place of feeling rather than documentation,” highlighting the sense of balance, devotion and quiet harmony between the two swans.

That description felt particularly special to me because so much of my work is about exactly that: not necessarily painting a place exactly as it exists, but painting the way a place—or a moment—feels.

There was something wonderfully full-circle about watching that quiet little moment between two swans become very, very unquiet in scale, displayed above one of Boston’s busiest streets.

I’m incredibly grateful to GBH and The Culture Show for selecting my work for Community Canvas and giving Swans in Emerald a much bigger canvas for the day.

Read the full GBH Community Canvas feature

Art of Aquarius: Looking Back at My First Solo Exhibition

There is something surreal about seeing months—really, years—of your life hanging together on four walls.

Art of Aquarius was my first solo exhibition, on view from February 5 through March 12, 2026 at EventThem Gallery in Medford, Massachusetts. More than a collection of paintings, the exhibition became a reflection of a period of transition in my life: entering my late twenties, approaching the end of my Saturn return, finding my footing as an artist, and thinking about what it means to trust where you are going even when you can't quite see the destination yet.

The Concept

The idea for Art of Aquarius began with the Age of Aquarius.

Astrologically, the transition from the Age of Pisces into the Age of Aquarius represents a movement away from old structures and toward innovation, individuality, intuition, creativity and collective consciousness. Whether you take astrology literally or simply appreciate the symbolism, I loved the idea of using that transition as a framework for the exhibition.

Aquarius is also, of course, my sign.

As I developed the show, I kept returning to the tension between the ethereal and the strange. I wanted the paintings to exist somewhere between the natural world I am constantly drawn to and something a little more otherworldly. David Bowie's Space Oddity became one source of inspiration, as did The Twilight Zone—two references that embrace uncertainty, curiosity and the feeling that there may be something just beyond what we can see.

That became the world of Art of Aquarius.

There were swans floating through emerald water, lilies and wild fields, moonlight and sunsets, flowers spilling across canvases, and familiar landscapes transformed by memory. Some paintings were rooted in very specific places and moments: a sunrise over Boston Harbor, the cliffs at Sand Beach in Maine, lilacs in New Hampshire, and meteor showers over Sebago Lake.

They were real places, but through painting they became something else.

Check out my promotional page for more information: https://www.adelepatnaude.art/art-of-aquarius

Painting a Period of Change

Looking back, I don't think I could have made this exhibition at another point in my life.

I moved to Boston and, somewhere along the way, began taking my art more seriously. What had always been part of me started becoming something I was willing to build a life around.

At the same time, I was moving through my Saturn return—the astrological period roughly between ages 27 and 30 that is associated with growing up, restructuring your life and deciding what you actually want to carry forward with you.

That idea of transformation found its way into the paintings without me necessarily realizing it at first.

Art of Aquarius became a collection about the places, people and moments that anchored me while everything else was changing.

Opening Night — February 7

On February 7, we officially opened Art of Aquarius.

Standing in a gallery surrounded by my paintings and seeing the space filled with friends, family, fellow artists and people who had come simply because they wanted to see the work was something I don't think I'll ever forget.

For so much of the process of making art, you're alone. It's you, a canvas and whatever problem you're trying to solve that day. Then suddenly the work leaves the studio and belongs, at least a little bit, to everyone who stands in front of it.

During my opening remarks, I talked about the people in my life as anchors.

That felt particularly important because, while the exhibition was about transformation, it was also about the people who make transformation possible. The people who encourage you, show up, look at unfinished paintings, listen to ideas that aren't fully formed yet and remind you to keep going.

Seeing so many of those people together in one room was one of the most meaningful parts of the entire exhibition.

A Month of Art of Aquarius

One of my favorite things about having the exhibition up for more than a month was that opening night wasn't the end of the experience.

The gallery became a place where I could continue sharing the work, talking about the ideas behind individual paintings and hearing what other people saw in them. Paintings that began as deeply personal memories took on entirely different meanings depending on who was standing in front of them.

The exhibition included works like Swans in Emerald, Blush over Boston, Cliffs at Sand Beach, Twilight Lillies, Everything that Reaches, Memory of a Field, Wild Growth, Midnight Swan, Full Moon and many others.

Together, they created the world I had imagined when Art of Aquarius was still only an idea.

Closing Night — March 5

On March 5, we gathered again for the closing reception.

There was something very different about returning to the gallery near the end of the exhibition. Opening night had been filled with anticipation—months of planning finally becoming real. Closing night felt more reflective.

By then, the paintings had lived outside of my studio for a month. People had spent time with them. Some had found new homes. And I had gotten used to the strange and wonderful experience of walking into a room and seeing so much of myself hanging on the walls.

It felt less like an ending than I expected.

Instead, it felt like proof that I could do it again.

The Art of Possible

One of the most personal pieces included in the exhibition was For David, a painting that wasn't for sale.

Alongside it was a dedication:

To My Number One Supporter, I Love You
Happy 30th

The Jansens, 2026

To the man who taught me
the Art of Possible.

In many ways, that phrase captures what I took away from the entire exhibition.

The art of possible.

Making your first solo show requires an almost unreasonable amount of belief in something before it exists. You have to imagine the paintings, imagine the room, imagine people walking through it—and then slowly make that imaginary thing real.

And I certainly didn't do that alone.

What Comes After Aquarius

When I first started thinking about Art of Aquarius, I was interested in the idea of crossing from one era into another.

Now, looking back, I think that was happening on a much smaller and more personal scale too.

This exhibition marked the end of one version of my art practice and the beginning of another. It gave me the chance to look at years of paintings together and recognize the threads connecting them: nature, memory, light, water, transformation, softness, and the slightly unreal spaces that exist somewhere between what a place looked like and how I remember it feeling.

Most importantly, it made me excited about what I haven't painted yet.

Thank you to everyone who visited Art of Aquarius, came to an event, purchased a painting, shared the exhibition, encouraged me while I was preparing for it, or simply stood in front of one of my paintings for a little while.

For my first solo exhibition, I couldn't have imagined a more meaningful beginning.