Exhibitions

Ian Stone | A Seat at the Table
Inaugural Solo Vancouver Exhibition
February 7-21, 2026
Upper Gallery
3045 Granville Street, Vancouver
Opening Reception: Saturday, February 7, 2-4pm

Bau-Xi Vancouver proudly presents A Seat at the Table, the inaugural solo exhibition in Vancouver by Canadian high realist painter and Bau-Xi Gallery's newest artist roster addition Ian Stone.

Stone is a Montreal-based painter whose work explores still life and figuration through the lenses of queer memory, camp, and the aesthetics of collection. Drawing from personal and inherited objects - ornamental, kitsch, and decorative - Stone treats painting as a site of archival reimagining, where objects stand in for histories shaped by desire, longing, and exclusion. His practice is deeply informed by art history, often referencing historical examples and visual strategies, which he reinterprets to speak to contemporary queer experience.

Artist statement:

In A Seat at the Table, I use the language of still life to reconstruct historical spaces - domestic, feminine, and contemplative places where queerness might have quietly persisted. These arrangements of vessels, flowers, butterflies, and flames are not mere objects; they are sites of memory and silence, of what endures and what disappears.

A 16th-century Spanish friar once wrote, “Sodomites are like butterflies, drawn to their own burning.” That image, intended as condemnation, becomes in my work an act of remembrance. The butterflies stand for those who were burned: men whose desire marked them for destruction and whose tenderness was turned against them. Fire, in turn, held a sacred role in early modern thought - it was seen as the purest symbol of divine masculinity. In burning queer bodies, that “divine” fire became a tool of correction, as if to reclaim a masculinity imagined as lost.

In reclaiming the flame, I seek to reverse that violence. The fire in these paintings no longer purifies or condemns - it reveals and transforms. These works exist within the tension between the violence of a world that punishes difference and the passionate self-knowledge that comes from surviving it. Each still life is a meditation on what queerness has brought to the table of history, to our legacy, and our sense of belonging. An insistence that fragility is not weakness.

I draw on archival fragments: trial records that punished effeminacy, poems that celebrated forbidden love, words once spoken only in whispers, and the geographies of persecution themselves. Visiting these sites revealed how memory clings to the ground - how violence leaves its own kind of archive.

A Seat at the Table is not a plea for inclusion, but an assertion of authorship. The work suggests that queerness persists not only in what is preserved, but also in what has been censored, damaged, or half-forgotten. These still lifes are offerings to that persistence - an attempt to hold beauty and loss in the same frame. It asks what happens when those once burned return to the table, carrying with them both the light that tried to destroy them, and the radiance that survived it. 

-Ian Stone, 2025


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Cara Barer | Wandering
February 5 - March 2, 2026
Bau-Xi Gallery | Dufferin
1384 Dufferin Street, Toronto
Opening reception: Saturday, February 7th from 2 - 4 pm | Artist in Attendance

This February, Bau-Xi Gallery | Dufferin is thrilled to present Wandering, a transformative exhibition by acclaimed photographic artist, Cara Barer. Within her unique and dynamic practice, Barer uses printed materials – such as maps and reference texts – to discuss how the meaning and function of these objects change when placed within an entirely digital framework. The resulting documentation of these ‘sculptures’ are intended to explore notions of impermanence and the erosion of knowledge in our current day and age

Artist Statement:

I work with discarded maps and reference books as both material and metaphor. Once designed to orient or instruct, these maps and books have outlived their practical use, replaced by digital navigation and constantly shifting borders. By soaking, folding, compressing, and re-forming them, I transform flat systems of information into sculptural objects.

I am interested in how knowledge erodes when total dependence is placed in a digital world, and how meaning changes when the original function of a physical map or guidebook is removed. 

Photography allows me to fix these temporary forms by preserving a moment of physical tension. My camera becomes a tool of translation, moving the work from object to image.  Through this process, my books and maps become meditations on impermanence, how we seek knowledge or obtain information, and the human desire to locate ourselves within an ever-shifting world. – Cara Barer

Co-Director of Bau-Xi Gallery, Kyle Matuzewiski, writes:

Having represented Cara’s work at Bau-Xi for almost 15 years, it is not lost on me how her work has been a harbinger of our increasing dependence on digital means to access information.

By using reference texts, atlases, journals, and so on, Cara creates and weaves a narrative whereby she acknowledges the importance of those texts – from a historical perspective – but negates their relevance via their deconstruction. The sculptural element of the documentation (resulting photograph) could also be a metaphor for how we interpret, internalize and interact with information in a digital world. That information becomes fragmented, summarized, and at times lacks the full weight with which it should carry.

Beyond that, Cara creates truly captivating images, which continue to delight and amaze both viewers and collectors alike. The sheer imagination within her practice is a guiding force that will lead to countless creations.

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Cara Barer is an internationally recognized established American photographer known for her abstract compositions of books and printed material.

In her experimentation with curling irons, clothes pins and water, Barer transforms volumes of irrelevant and outdated information into coiled, crumpled objects of beauty. By photographing each object as the last step in her creative intervention, Barer affords a second life to the cast-off books and paper she re-reinterprets. Fanciful and symbolic, Barer’s works allude to the status of the book in the contemporary digital age while offering an open narrative for each viewer to contemplate. In Barer’s latest work, the artist’s creations – books bound with sheet music, wallpaper, and pictures from her travels – are captured after being transformed into magnificent abstract compositions.

Cara Barer has exhibited in solo and group shows throughout the US and Canada since 1994. Her work has been featured extensively in such publications as New York Magazine, The Washington Post, Harper’s Magazine, The Boston Globe and The New Yorker, and can be found in the collections of Bloomingdale’s, Saks, Lehigh University, Nordstrom, United States Embassy, Kyiv, Ukraine, VISA, Wells Fargo Bank and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Barer lives and works in Houston, Texas.

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Gallery Artists | Chroma II
February 5 - March 2, 2026
Bau-Xi Gallery | Dufferin
1384 Dufferin Street, Toronto | Upper Gallery
Opening reception: Saturday, February 7th from 2 - 4 pm

This February, Bau-Xi Gallery | Dufferin is proud to present Chroma II, a group exhibition featuring works by Alex Cameron, Mel Gausden, Celia Lees, and Eric Louie.

In artistic parlance, chroma refers to the purity and depth of a colour. An artist will employ chroma in a myriad of ways, whether it be a vibrant pop, pulling your eye towards certain elements of the composition – or a dark richness, creating a sense of contrast and depth. Each of these artists uses high chroma in their respective practices. As a result, their work is bold and energetic, often applying paint directly from the tube, only adding tints, tones, and shades by necessity.

These artists can utilize these techniques to create uniquely stunning work, catching your eye, and drawing you in to absorb one colour after another.

To learn more about the practices of these artists, we suggest you check out our YouTube channel - click here.

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Steven Nederveen | The Invisible Pull
January 10 - 24, 2026
3045 Granville Street, Vancouver
Opening Reception: Saturday, January 10, 2-4pm


Bau-Xi Vancouver is thrilled to open 2026 with The Invisible Pull, the new solo exhibition of serene coastal imagery by Canadian mixed media artist Steven Nederveen. 

Drawing from a practice informed by meditation, Nederveen’s works reflect moments of stillness and attention and offer the perspective of human presence and co-existence within the great expanse of the natural world.  Photographic source material merges with painterly intervention, inviting viewers into a reflective space that continues to unfold beyond the image itself. 

Artist statement:

The Invisible Pull explores the vastness of the universe alongside our inner lives, highlighting a sense of humility and awe. Surfers gather beneath expansive skies as vertical lines move through the compositions, representing the pull of the sun and moon - unseen forces that quietly govern the tides, the ocean, and our bodies within it. While planetary motion shifts entire seas, we - small humans - float, paddle, and play in the waves, momentarily held within something far greater than ourselves.

Time spent in nature has a way of turning our attention inward. Away from noise and distraction, we become more aware of our breath, our bodies, and our thoughts. The ocean offers both movement and stillness, inviting reflection and presence. This body of work speaks to nature’s invisible pull back to our centre - a gentle reminder of where we find calm, clarity, and a deeper connection to the world around us.

-Steven Nederveen, 2026

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Martin Klimas | Flowervases
January 8 - February 2, 2026
Bau-Xi Gallery | Dufferin
1384 Dufferin Street, Toronto

In his dynamic and visually charged series, Flowervases, Martin Klimas photographs elegantly arranged flower vases at the exact moment of their shattering, which will be on display at Bau-Xi Gallery | Dufferin, this January.

Intricate glass vessels explode, delicate porcelain and stoneware crucibles burst into countless fragments, contrasting the quiet still-life Klimas has created, with a singular moment of utter chaos. The artists’ fascination is one of transformation - not destruction - where the impact creates a dramatic shift in the scene, one of a new-found beauty.

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Martin Klimas (b. 1971) is a fine art photographer based in Dusseldorf, Germany. Drawing inspiration from photographers and inventors such as Eadweard Muybridge and Dr. Harold Edgerton, Klimas uses the latest technological advancements in high speed photography to capture a split-second of movement.

In his work, Klimas captures the moment of destruction as an elegant flower vase is destroyed by a projectile, the explosion of shattered porcelain as a figurine dropped from a height hits the floor, and the visually stimulating effects of soundwaves on pools of neon paint. His interest lies not in the ruin of the subject, but in the precise moment a dramatic transformation takes place.

Klimas’ work has been exhibited internationally in several solo and group exhibitions, and can be found numerous private and corporate collections. Klimas received a Bachelor Degree in the Study of Photography from the University of Applied Sciences in Dusseldorf in 1998.

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Group Exhibition | Holiday
December 4 - December 22, 2025
1384 Dufferin Street, Toronto | Upper Gallery
Opening reception: Saturday, December 6th from 2 - 4 pm

This December, Bau-Xi Gallery | Dufferin presents Holiday, a thoughtfully curated collection to put a bow on the past year. From the dreamy, to the eclectic, to the sublime, this exhibition will feature the practices of Erin Armstrong, Cara Barer, Joshua Jensen-Nagle, Nicole Katsuras, Robert Marchessault, Kyle Scheurmann, Janna Watson, and more.

To learn more about the practices of these artists, we suggest you check out our YouTube channel - click here.

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Gavin Lynch | Light Spells
November 6 - December 1, 2025
Bau-Xi Gallery | Dufferin
1384 Dufferin Street, Toronto
Opening reception: Saturday, November 8th from 2 - 4 pm | Artist in Attendance

Watch Artist Talk Series video about Light Spells

This month, Bau-Xi Gallery | Dufferin is delighted to present Light Spells, a captivating exhibition by Canadian painter, Gavin Lynch. In this body of work, the artist turns to the magic of the natural world, channeling that wonderment into his bewitching portrayals of our environment. Lynch’s creative motifs highlight the ephemeral – whether it be through dappled sunlight, or delicate layers of fog – to remind us to slow down, look, and take in the beauty that surrounds us.

Artist Statement:

The title Light Spells resonates with me because it carries the possibility of a double connotation: in describing the paintings it could firstly suggest that these depictions of the immateriality of light could somehow cast an incantation upon the viewer, a spell.

A spell to get a bit lost, a spell to be transported away through the act of looking, a spell to take a beat. Or rather perhaps a spell to ruminate on our relationship with nature, where things currently stand and ~ bigger picture ~ what is at stake. I’ve always felt that paintings ~ essentially some coloured mud arranged on a flat surface ~ are imbued with something that is more than just a sum of their parts, and that this often feels like some type of archaic magic. I still believe in the transportive power of painting.

Secondly, Light Spells could be taken in a more temporal context: that we are experiencing a moment of light in an otherwise dark time. Amidst the turbulent backdrop of the contemporary experience and a challenging year, I’ve been really grateful for the light spells when I’ve found them. Perhaps there is some metaphoric magic in that, also.

On a more formal level, the paintings continue a thematic return to depictions of nature, specifically landscapes that are both familiar and local to me. These paintings feel like a bit of a homecoming to the Canadian landscape. After having previously explored painting both virtual and digital spaces, these works have come full circle back to the places and motifs that I have painted since I began making art almost 30 years ago. In a digitally saturated world, bringing things back to nature feels more relevant than ever.

The approach to the paintings remains the same, as I still view the canvas with a collage mentality, and create them using a variety of painting implements, including brushes, squeegees and airbrush. The motifs, however, are focused on fleeting moments of light, such as sunrises, rays of light filtering through the canopy and the ephemeral atmospherics of fog. I love painting’s ability to forever freeze these moments that are, in our lived experience, so fleeting.

The works are intentionally uplifting, picturesque and beautiful: they are intended as small spells to remind ourselves that there is still beauty out in the world, and that, if some form of magic were to ever exist, it would surely be in nature. – Gavin Lynch

Co-Director of Bau-Xi Gallery, Kyle Matuzewiski, writes:

With Light Spells, Lynch has really hit the mark. Not only has he honed the approach to his craft – exemplified by the high level of artistry in his representation of atmospheric effects – he has also wholeheartedly dedicated himself to the depiction of the innate and intangible.

I found myself experiencing that intensely when observing his piece, “To the West”. A lone Jack Pine rests on a rocky out-cropping, branches dappled in the rising sun, gentle hues of yellow, orange, and red picking up the remnants of morning fog being burnt off the surface of the water. I can imagine myself in that scene. The call of the loon. The sweet smell of dew-covered foliage. The crisp air gently nipping at exposed skin.

Much like Thompson before him, Lynch has grounded himself in the iconic symbolism of Canadian landscape history. Lawren Harris, remarked upon Thompson’s seminal work as depicting “devotion and greatness of spirit.” Lynch, too, approaches his subject with a type of reverence, but with a watchful eye of how technology continues to shape the way in which we experience nature. He makes nuanced hints through subtle pixelation of reflected surfaces in “The Sun Also Rises”, or the rasterized gradations of the tree bark in “Flickering”.

However, at the heart of this is Lynch’s unyielding devotion to the depiction of the world as he sees it. He seeks to transport the viewer away, to remind them of the sublime, and the magic that it possesses.

Indeed, he does that, and then some.

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Gavin Lynch explores landscape with a contemporary point of view, drawing from environmentally aware fiction, art history, and nature itself.

The artist challenges the traditional notion of landscape painting by approaching each work with a digitally informed, collage-like approach. By playing with opposing visual and tactile qualities, Lynch creates a layered and nuanced canvas that plays with the sculptural qualities of paint. The artist looks to climate change and the inherent destruction of our natural environment to depict forest scenes and seascapes, each informed by research expeditions, lived experience, and his fascination with Weird fiction and Eco fiction.

Gavin Lynch completed his Master of Fine Arts at the University of Ottawa, Ottawa, in 2012. Prior to studying at the University of Ottawa, Lynch completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design, Vancouver, in 2009.

In 2014, the artist was one of fifteen finalists competing in the RBC Canadian Painting Competition. Works by Gavin Lynch were exhibited at the Montreal Museum of Fine Art from September 9 to October 8, 2014. The competition looked to award emerging painters who champion their medium in new and innovative ways.

Works by the artist can be found in collections including Royal Bank of Canada; Toronto Dominion Bank; Scotiabank; City of Ottawa Public Art Collection; University of Toronto; Simon Fraser University Permanent Collection, B.C. Hall; Air Canada; among others. Gavin Lynch has been represented by Bau-Xi Gallery since 2021.

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