'I feel like I am returning home': Leonard Paul steps back from 50-year painting career
Renowned Mi'kmaw artist Leonard Paul has announced his retirement from painting after a 50-year career. Following a successful retrospective exhibition, he plans to focus on family and friends while stepping away from the professional art world.
Why it matters
Paul is a significant figure in Indigenous art, and his retirement marks the end of a long-standing career that bridged traditional and contemporary styles.
But before he reached his destination, he decided his career was over.
"A capricious action, I suppose,” he said in a CBC interview after announcing on Tuesday he was retiring from the fine arts. "That's what I did year after year: 'I gotta paint it,' and I'd end up doing it.
"[But] when we drove away, I just said in my mind, 'No, I'm not going to paint it. It's over.'"
The 72-year-old artist was born and raised in Halifax and is a member of Pictou Landing First Nation.
In the 1970s, Paul enrolled at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD), but left early to launch his painting career. He earned a bachelor of arts from Acadia University in the 1990s, then finally completed his NSCAD degree in printmaking and painting earlier this year.
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