More Than a Certificate —
Meet the Artist Behind the 2026 People's Choice Awards
Every year, businesses across New Brunswick earn recognition for the hard work they put into their communities. And every year, a lot of those certificates end up in a pile.
Not because the businesses aren't proud — they are. But when a certificate looks like every other certificate, it's hard to make it feel like anything more than a piece of paper.
That's what we kept coming back to when we started planning the 2026 People's Choice Awards. We didn't want our winners walking away with something that would get stacked on a shelf or tucked behind a counter. We wanted People's Choice Award winners to receive something they'd genuinely want to display — something that would stop a customer mid-step and make them ask, "What is that?"
We wanted it to spark a conversation. About the award. About what it means to be recognized by your community as one of the best in New Brunswick. About this province and everything that makes it worth celebrating.
The answer, we decided, had to come from someone local. Because that's what Excellence NB is about at its core — and honestly, there was no better way to celebrate New Brunswick businesses than through the hands of a New Brunswick artist.
We went looking for a New Brunswick artist who was talented, passionate, and just getting started — someone whose career we could genuinely help move forward by putting their work in front of thousands of people across the province. After researching and exploring the incredible pool of artistic talent New Brunswick has to offer, Emily MacIsaac stood out. From the very first conversation with her, we knew she was the right fit. She was exactly what we were looking for — and honestly, it felt like she fell into our laps.
Meet Emily MacIsaac
Meet Emily MacIsaac. She's 25 years old, lives in Saint John with her cat, works as an ergonomist, serves part-time, and dedicates nearly every spare hour to her art. Oh, and she's also trains in Olympic weightlifting. Safe to say she's not someone who does things halfway.
Emily grew up in the Kennebecasis Valley just outside Saint John — surrounded by water, trees, and the kind of landscapes that make you want to stop and stare. She's been creative since she was four or five years old, drawing nature scenes, painting the family dog, and filling sketchbooks. Art was always there, woven into who she was even when life pulled her in other directions.
She went to university in Fredericton, earned a kinesiology degree in 2024, and moved back home to Saint John, where her family is. But it wasn't until she signed up for her very first pop-up market at Picaroons as part of the Art Assembly that something clicked. "Taking those first steps into going public really encouraged and drove home that I wanted this to be more than a hobby," she told us. From there, opportunities kept opening up — more markets, a live painting at New River Beach during Ocean Week, and a growing community of people who wanted to see what she'd make next.
Over the last year, she's gone all in.
The Art & The Artist
Ask Emily to describe her art style, and she'll tell you she doesn't have one single distinct style — she's still working through it, which is honestly part of what makes her so exciting to watch. She calls herself a landscape artist at heart, but she also dabbles in collage-style work and block printing, carving her own lino blocks by hand. She makes bookmarks, stickers, prints — things that bring her art into everyday life.
Her primary medium is gouache — a paint that sits somewhere between watercolour and acrylic, flowy and opaque at the same time. It gives her work a warmth and a recognizable quality that carries through everything she makes. She describes her style in three words: nature-inspired, colourful, feel-good. We think that's about perfect.
What drives her, more than anything, is being outside. She loves plein air painting — going somewhere beautiful, sitting down, finishing a piece on location, and never touching it again. It's a practice that pushes her to let go of perfectionism and trust what's right in front of her. "No matter how I'm feeling, the beauty of nature drives me to keep creating."
Growing up in Saint John, with ocean and forest never more than twenty minutes away, shaped her eye for the natural world in ways she's still discovering.
The Importance of Friendship
No story about Emily is complete without mentioning her best friend of twenty years — fellow New Brunswick artist Julia Tetford.
Julia inspired and encouraged Emily to share her art publicly, as she was doing the same. Her and Julia started painting plein-air together — sitting down outside, finishing a piece, and walking away. And their first pop-up market together led to roughly 35 more markets across the province, including the Garrison Night Market in Fredericton, the Kingston Farmers Market, the Lovely Little Market, and the Queen Square Farmers Market in Saint John.
They balance each other in the best way too. Emily tends to get lost in the details — Julia is masterful at laying down bold shapes and moving forward. They've spent years learning from each other, pushing each other, and keeping each other going on the days when it feels hard.
"I definitely wouldn't be where I am right now without her," Emily says. "We encourage, drive, and bounce ideas off each other constantly."
Three Paintings. Three Landscapes. One Province.
When we asked Emily to create three original paintings for the Gold, Silver, and Bronze certificates, we gave her one direction: make it feel like New Brunswick.
She ran with it.
Emily wanted the imagery to capture what this province is really about — water, trees, caves, and coastline. The places that feel distinctly, unmistakably ours. Each location was chosen with intention, and each one tells its own story.
The Gold and Bronze certificates both draw from St. Martins — a place Emily has visited her whole life and one that holds a special place in her heart. The colours of the sea caves complement both medal tones beautifully, and the caves themselves carry a story all their own. They are a staple of New Brunswick's coastline, showcasing the province's incredible changing tide — at low tide, you can walk through and explore them, but at high tide, they are completely submerged. Dramatic, alive, and entirely ours.
The Silver certificate showcases Mount Carleton — part of the Appalachian Mountain Range and the highest peak in the Maritime provinces. Its vast stretch of trees, mountain ridges, and mostly cool tones made it a natural fit for the silver medal.
To make the three pieces feel connected, Emily was deliberate about both composition and colour. Each painting draws your eye to the same focal point. She painted all three pieces in sequence, weaving shared highlights and cool tones throughout so that side by side, the three pieces read as a family.
"This was my first time creating three coordinating landscapes," she told us. "It was a fun challenge."
A Little Piece of New Brunswick Art
When these certificates land in the hands of nearly 300 People's Choice Award winners across New Brunswick this summer, we hope they do exactly what Emily designed them to do. We hope they go up on the wall where customers can see them. We hope someone notices, stops, and asks about it — and that the business gets to proudly share that they were voted one of the best in New Brunswick, and that the beautiful piece hanging on their wall was painted by a local New Brunswick artist. That's the conversation we wanted to create.
Because behind every Gold, Silver, and Bronze is a 25-year-old from Saint John who has been chasing the beauty of this province her whole life, and is only just getting started.
We are incredibly proud to have her work represent what we stand for — celebrating New Brunswick, and the businesses and people who make it exceptional. Every certificate is a reflection of that, a piece of art that honours the hard work, dedication, and achievement of the business holding it.
If you want to follow her journey, find her work, or pick up a piece of your own, you can find Emily on Instagram and Facebook at @emilymacisaac_art. Keep an eye on her socials for upcoming pop-up market dates — and watch for a website coming soon.
To the businesses receiving a People's Choice Award certificate this year — you earned it. And now you have a little piece of New Brunswick art to prove it.
