On June 18, 2025, Bannerman Park in St. John’s became home to a landmark in Newfoundland and Labrador’s public memory, a life-sized bronze statue of suffragist Armine Nutting Gosling, who spent her life working for women to have the right to vote.
The work marks two firsts: the first statue of a named woman in the city of St. John’s and the first public statue in the province created by a female artist.
At the heart of this project is welder and sculptor Sheila Coultas, whose creative journey reflects both craftsmanship and conviction.
Coultas began her artistic career in textiles before pursuing welding at the College of the North Atlantic. She described the transition as one guided by “inspired action.”
“It lined up just as I was leaving my job,” she explained. “That felt like a sign. And you know, usually, that’s a good sign that you’re on a path that will work for you. It’s about following a calling to change for whatever reason.”
Her background in textiles continues to shape her sculptural style. “Once you’ve got the form of the body, you have to basically clothe it,” she said. “Welding has seams too. When you’re putting the statue together in bronze, you close up the seams. It’s a different medium, but the thinking is the same.”
Creating the statue came with challenges. Only eight archival photos of Gosling were available: shockingly, four of them were only discovered weeks before work began, and none were in profile. Coultas worked closely with the project’s committee to interpret Gosling’s image while balancing realism, idealism, and symbolism.
“I got lucky,” she admitted. “There was a lot of guesswork involved. But thankfully there weren’t any living people who knew her personally, so I had a little bit of license. Still, I wanted her to be recognizable; I wanted to do justice to her legacy.”
Coultas credits her mother, Frances Ennis, a recipient of the Persons Case Award and a textile artist, as a major influence. “You can imagine the household I grew up in,” she said. “It was very much oriented around women’s rights.”
That upbringing, along with her spiritual beliefs, shaped her approach to the work. “When I was sculpting Gosling, I focused more on the person she was. The divinity she brought to her life and to the lives of the people around her. Her embodiment of femininity mattered more to me than politics.”
Coultas also reflected on the broader arts community in Newfoundland and Labrador: “Newfoundland’s arts community, while vibrant, can be quite exclusive. I’m hoping this project helps open doors a little wider, especially for emerging artists and young women.
“I really hope that having a woman create such a public piece helps artists make a place for themselves in the arts of Newfoundland and Labrador.”
“It’s hard to make art when you’re stuck in the vicious cycle of working to afford the chance to make art in the first place,” she added.
The statue was made possible through more than $300,000 in public donations. Dr. Margot Duley, chair of the Gosling Legacy Project, described the effort as a community-driven campaign with national resonance.
When asked about her artistic influences, Coultas cited Newfoundland mentors: “Gerald Squires was … like talking to Buddha with a paintbrush.” She also credited Morgan MacDonald with teaching her the intricacies of sculpting the human form: “Drawing is one thing. Working in 3D is a whole other thing. You have to get it right, or it just doesn’t look right.”
She also expressed gratitude for her years working at the Newfoundland Bronze Foundry. “I got very lucky in my position at the Bronze Foundry,” she said. “I learned a lot about sculpting figures through that whole process and almost 10 years of working at the Foundry—I got a chance to practice a lot.”
Coultas expressed pride in her contribution: “There’s a deep satisfaction in seeing it complete,” she said. “Especially when I pass Bannerman Park and see people next to it, engaging with it—that’s why I made it the way I did.”
“I wasn’t sure what reception to expect,” she added. “But by the time it was done, it didn’t matter how people saw it—I knew I had done it right.”
Asked who she would like to sculpt next, Coultas said, “Believe it or not, Mary Magdalene comes to mind… My spiritual practice has been taking me into the divine feminine. The church never acknowledged her as something of the divine, and that’s something I’d like to change. If I were to get a chance to do that, I would consider myself the luckiest woman on the planet.”
Sheila Coultas’s statue of Armine Nutting Gosling stands not only as a tribute to a pioneering suffragist who helped millions of women but also as a testament to the first woman who welded history into form, opening a new chapter in Newfoundland and Labrador’s cultural landscape.
