Discovering the Local Artists behind the 2026 'Love Notes from the North End' Postcards

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Coming soon - You can collect these postcards for FREE at local North End Halifax cafes, shops & boutiques, and send them to someone special!

The North End Business Association has once again collaborated with four gifted local artists to create this year's "Love Notes From The North End"—a collection of postcards celebrating the love for our North End community. You can collect these postcards for free at local North End Halifax cafes, shops, and boutiques, and send them to someone special! Continue reading below to discover more about the incredible artists behind this year's Love Notes artwork.

“Africville Basin” by Nahom Assefa

Nahom Assefa is an artist, curator, writer, and founder of Cultured Creative Studio. His work explores cross-cultural storytelling, belonging, and identity through visual art and community engagement. Originally from Ethiopia and currently based in Halifax, Nahom's practice is rooted in curiosity and a desire to understand the world through multicultural voices.

This art piece captures his first experience visiting Africville. After a rough day, it offered a refreshing escape from the city’s bustle, a moment of quiet and fresh air. The vastness of the Bedford Basin, the peaceful atmosphere inside the museum, and the sense of awe Nahom felt all reflected the North End’s creative and resilient spirit. This part of Halifax has become one of Nahom’s favorite places to let his creative juices flow.

Artist: Nahom Assefa

Instagram: @cest_nahom

Website: culturedcreativestudio.ca

Email: nahomassefaa@gmail.com

“Open mic night on Agricola” by Odessa Spore

As an artist and long-time resident of Halifax’s North End, I am inspired by the spirit of community, place, and belonging that defines this vibrant neighborhood. Since arriving here in the early 1990s to study at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, I have witnessed the North End’s evolution—from subtle, slow changes to its more recent rapid transformation. Throughout, the neighborhood has maintained its youthful quirkiness and artsy flair.

In my art practice, I celebrate the unique character of the North End, capturing its houses, streets, and everyday scenes. My work weaves together collage, printmaking, and painting into a whimsical aesthetic. I practice something I call Artplay, which cultivates childlike wonder and freedom of expression.

Artist: Odessa Spore

Website: odessaspore.com

"Always Love You" by Eleanor Hanon

Hannon has lived in the same Halifax neighbourhood her whole life, observing buildings come and go. As people and neighbourhoods change, the memory of how things were is increasingly challenging to conjure (but no less loved). Her first book, Citymouse (Conundrum Press, 2025) examines the ways that we begin to mourn places and experiences before we’ve lost them.

Combining memoir elements, illustrated architectural spaces, portraits of loved ones and text, Hannon's work feels at once like a family album, time capsule, secret diary and a poem, reflecting the ebb and flow of her experiences straining to stay present while running in circles that bring constant reminders of the past. In other words, what it feels like to bloom where you were planted.

Artist: Eleanor Hanon

Instagram: @eleanor.hannon

"13" by Kaya Panthier

Kaya Panthier is a Dominican-Canadian artist based in Halifax’s North End. Her work explores diaspora, intergenerational connections, and studies in grief with an emphasis on relationships to land, gender, and labour.

In recent works, Panthier reimagines the landscape of the tropics as one which conceals, protects, and houses spirit. Through a study of incalescence, revolt, exalt, and haunting on the island of Dominica, her current practice blends a reverence for personal legend with an interest in Caribbean folktales.

13, is an exploration of sisterhood and a shared experience of growing up as young Black women in Halifax’s North End. The work is a portrait of my sister at the age of thirteen and an acknowledgment of her growing sense of interiority and identity as she entered adolescence. 13, highlights the beauty of my sister’s tenacity and fiery spirit while paying close attention to the vulnerabilities of shaping identity as a young Black person in Nova Scotia.