Holiday | New Works by Gallery Artists
December 3-17, 2022
3045 Granville Street, Vancouver
Main Gallery
Bau-Xi Vancouver is pleased to present our annual holiday group exhibition, featuring beautiful new painting and photography in the spirit of the season.
The exhibition includes works by artists including David Alexander, Vicky Christou, Cori Creed, Jamie Evrard, Anne Griffiths, Nicole Katsuras, Gavin Lynch, Andre Petterson and more.
Steven Nederveen | The Ocean In Us
3045 Granville Street, Vancouver
November 19-30, 2022
Steven Nederveen’s work deals with the passage of time, a theme stemming from his own practice of meditation. Moments of peaceful clarity lead the artist to draw connections between our natural environment and aspects of spirituality through an artistic process that combines painting and photography. In this new exhibition, he focuses on the drama of crashing waves, paying homage to the historic seascape paintings of shipwrecks by old Dutch masters, referencing dark black skies, turbulent waters and fine detail.
Artist statement:
As a waterman and the son of a sailor, I’ve spent a lot of time on the waters of the west coast. I know these waters, and yet I can never really know them. The ocean is an endless variety of movement, light and feeling. We can see ourselves in its vastness and depths, its calm and its torrents. Water reflects back to us our inner worlds and emotions.
In my latest depictions of the sea, I have re-cast the ocean as subject and zoomed in on one small section of turbulent water, using contemporary techniques to distill ocean crashes into gesture and form so that we can feel the full impact and chaos of the untamed sea. I use a golden glow to represent the human spirit, depicting it as an extension of nature itself, inseparable from the beautiful chaos of these waves. The vastness of the water reflects the vastness of ourselves - these pieces are both inner and outer landscape.
-Steven Nederveen 2022
Michelle Nguyen | Horror Vacui
November 5-16, 2022
3045 Granville Street, Vancouver
Opening Reception: Saturday November 5, 2-4pm - Artist in attendance
Michelle Nguyen uses oil, pastel, and vivid colours to illustrate worlds dense with mythology, symbolism, and narrative. In her current work, Nguyen looks to encourage viewers to think and speak openly about human mortality and acknowledge death as an inevitable reality - she believes that contemporary Western society has created a culture of death denial and fear that is detrimental to the emotional and spiritual well being of the individual and the communities to which they belong. She infuses her images with important commentary on inherited trauma and ancestral grief through her lens as part of a Vietnamese Canadian family.
In her new show, Nguyen explores themes of mortality through the Victorian aesthetic horror vacui (Latin for ‘fear of empty space’) as a way to talk about the unknowns of the future and the afterlife.
Sheri Bakes | The Company of Stars
October 15-29, 2022
3045 Granville Street, Vancouver
Opening Reception: Saturday October 15, 2-4pm - Artist in attendance
In her signature stippled style with a continuing focus on nature, Sheri Bakes presents a collection of landscapes inspired by a dear friend’s experience hiking from California to BC. Bakes captures the characteristic vegetation along this long route, depicting the changes in landscape, weather and atmosphere evident in the received photos taken along the journey northward. Bakes’ ever-present indication of movement, breath and life-force - the unseen made visible - connects all her images, inviting quiet contemplation and offering momentary sanctuary from a busy and relentless world.
Artist Statement:
This recent body of work is inspired by a friend’s six-month solo thru-hike along the Pacific Crest Trail and the photos she shared with friends and family along the way.
Jennifer Szabo entered the Pacific Crest Trail on April 8, 2022, at Mile 0 in Campo, California, and by the time this show opens, she will have finished in Manning Park in BC, sometime in September.
The Pacific Crest Trail is approximately 2,650 miles and is listed as one of the top five most challenging thru-hikes in the world. Wildfires prevented Jennifer from hiking two sections of the trail, approximately 362.6 miles.
Building this show was challenging and also gratifying from the start of the process to the finish. It provided a way for me to accompany my friend on her journey from the studio, and to accompany her mom (who is also a good friend) on her own journey of emotions while her daughter was out on the trail, while simultaneously experiencing my own paint-focused journey through the work.
This show is in celebration of my friend Jennifer, her incredible accomplishment in solo thru-hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, and also in celebration of her wonderful, very dedicated and supportive family, Peter, Nancy and Emily.
-Sheri Bakes 2022
Eric Louie | Hide and Seek
October 1-13, 2022
Main Gallery
3045 Granville Street, Vancouver
The reworking of canvases has always been a common, natural, and even essential element of an artist’s practice. Bau-Xi Gallery presents an extraordinary collection composed entirely of newly reworked abstract paintings by Vancouver artist Eric Louie. In his signature graphic, sculptural style, Eric rethinks his organic abstract forms with new colour, line and balance, fine-tuned to reflect the process and accumulation of learning along life’s journey. The new paintings gain fortitude from the energy of the originals, which lie dormant under the surface for a later discovery.
Artist statement:
I find a lot of joy in reinventing my older pieces. This rebirth or salvation - changing something old into something new - has many rewards and moments of discovery. Through a process of transcription via the iPad, I can explore new avenues for forms within the works, leading to surprisingly different outcomes than I had originally imagined. This cycle of technology informing my painting has become inescapable and is reflective of our use of technology in life in general.
As in past bodies of work, the paintings elicit comfort through suggestions of the familiar, while remaining subjective in their virtual spaces. They reference landscapes or connote flora or fauna-like imagery, sometimes even figural, without being overt. My paintings allow one to relate to their content, while at the same time posing questions as to its significance. The show title ‘Hide and Seek’ reflects the idea that paintings are in constant flux, and that the artist tames them while they are in the studio. They undergo the processes of expansion and contraction of information, from maximalism to minimalism in some cases... The works speak to a futuristic aesthetic, bending metallic gradients and bands of light over leaf-like formations. In them, I see a sense of strength and perhaps utopian beauty found in idealized shapes and compositions. – Eric Louie 2022
Robert Marchessault | Resilience
October 1-13, 2022
Upper Gallery
3045 Granville Street, Vancouver
Robert Marchessault is a well-established Canadian painter with an extensive exhibition history. His poetic landscapes focus on space, light, atmosphere and distance. Marchessault’s new works explore one of his beloved subjects - the anthropomorphic presence and emotional impact of a single tree standing amidst wide open plains. Viewing and contemplating the collection in its entirety evokes a sense of tranquility and timelessness.
Artist statement:
My landscape paintings are made from memory, not from on-site drawings or photographs. I use memory as a filtering agent to remove nonessential visual elements. When a work is successful, it has a poetry that presents some aspect of my understanding of who I am.
In considering this group of new paintings, I see a continuation of my love for iconic trees. These tree paintings are about more than beauty; in them I try to celebrate natural resilience. It excites me to see abundant flowering and green growth emerge in spite of stress and hardships. Tree spirit and energies show outwardly through shape, colour and textures; I mark these onto the surface with my brushes. These qualities inspire me. The act of painting is my way to respond positively to the way life overcomes hardships. This often begins in a wordless moment of shifted perception. -Robert Marchessault, 2022
Sheila Kernan | Real Places, Imaginary Spaces
August 20 - September 1, 2022
3045 Granville Street, Vancouver
Canadian artist Sheila Kernan’s new solo exhibition, Real Places, Imaginary Spaces, highlights a collection of West Coast Canadian landscapes. Developed from a magical expedition, wandering through both the old-growth forests and the surrounding coastal beaches, the paintings include many upland habitats with an abundance of intertidal life.
Utilizing photographs, sketches and memories, Kernan carefully composes scenes based on real places. Her distinctive aesthetic is evident within the many layers found within her paintings. With bold forms, captivating colour combinations, and soft and textured brushstrokes, her approach to transcribing nature is undeniably one to see in person.
Artist Statement:
I was enchanted by the expansive biodiversity within a small geographical region, both when investigating and exploring the old-growth forests of the Port Renfrew area and also the hundreds of species of plants and animals, not to mention rock formations, within Botanical Beach on Vancouver Island.
Finding beauty in these locations, reflecting upon the enduring trials and tribulations that each region faces, I was reminded of a quote I heard in a podcast: “Creativity has the power to look pain in the eye and to decide to turn it into something better.”
I find absolute beauty in the various stages of decay found in the forest - the smell of cedar and the colours of lichen blanketing the bark that is crumbling off some of the oldest trees on our planet.
This is representative in the many layers of paint I used within this collection. From thin washes where the paint is breaking down to pigments that pixilate into dots or watercolor washes, to thick, textural globs that are emblematic of icing on a cake, each brushstroke within my paintings works together to create a pattern of drama and variety.
It is abundantly clear that nature thrives within the tide pools on Botanical Beach, even though here they face some of the harshest conditions. I was captivated by the distinctive traits and many varieties of life forms found in each. Robin's egg blue, rosy pinks, brilliant greens, and oranges, set alongside and juxtaposed with muted rock formations and navy blue waters. It was immediately clear that I could spend a lifetime cataloguing and painting this small area. Each kilometer I walked, the colours, shapes and textures of the rocks morphed as the light shifted and changed from direct and bright to overcast and moody.
Art has the power and ability to take you somewhere, and I hope this collection showcases the effervescence of the West Coast. Each piece is from a real place, but became an imaginary space. - Sheila Kernan 2022
Nicole Katsuras | Summer Hours
3045 Granville Street, Vancouver
June 4-16, 2022
This new body of abstract work by Nicole Katsuras is a reflection on learning to live more lightly, freely and joyfully, while looking forward to future adventures, big and small. Through her experimentation with paint, Nicole's works have evolved into highly textured, full-spectrum surfaces that explore femininity and reference cartography, Impressionism, Abstract Expressionism, and Ukiyo-e.
Artist statement:
The title ‘Summer Hours’ sparks an emotional response to contemporary life, evoking times or moments of celebration from personal experiences, as well as memories of carefree and joyful times. There is also a universal anticipation that accompanies the words “summer hours” – they suggest a period that is an accepted ‘break’. Summer hours are synonymous with beaches, parks, backyards, road trips and adventured-to, faraway exotic lands. It is in these moments of unplugging, recharging and reconnecting with nature that we increase our appreciation for our personal paths and our loved ones.
My process involves pushing and dragging the paint around on the canvas, and allowing it to dry into satisfying, detailed globs and blobs of stratified, marbled colours on the surface. These suggest landscapes, tapestries and floral elements in thick impasto.
-Nicole Katsuras
2022
Janna Watson | Blue Moon, Blue Ocean
3045 Granville Street, Vancouver
January 15 - 29, 2022
Janna Watson delves into the depths of space above and ocean below with a new series of lively and sophisticated abstract compositions. Clusters of purposefully placed gestural strokes in elegant earthy and pearly tones float against backgrounds of velvety navy, suggestive of the enveloping embrace of primordial darkness. Balanced by Janna’s signature poetic titles, these works are suffused with equal parts thoughtful introspection and lightness of being.
Artist Statement:
This series illustrates the dark blues that appear to float in deep, watery, starry space - the space where I’d rather be, in the sky or in the ocean. The ocean is attracted to the moon, and we are all caught somewhere in between that “pull".
When floating, there’s a movement felt, but not seen.
A silent pull.
Things exchanged.
Feelings that can’t or don’t have words.
Steven Nederveen | Home
3045 Granville Street, Vancouver
November 20 - December 2, 2021
Steven Nederveen reframes the grandeur of the Canadian landscape to reflect the essence and lifeforce of Home. By interweaving the mediums of photography and painting, Nederveen conjures a magical realism that brings forth new perspectives on the landscape genre.
Artist’s Exhibition Statement:
During the period of covid in which travel was difficult and we were all stuck at home, I got to thinking what “home” is to me. Home, it turns out, is many things - friends, family, connection, inner peace, playing with my kids. I decided to focus on home as an internal place of stillness and quietude, a place of reflection and contemplation. I have imbued images of island coastlines with these traits. I spent a lot of time as a kid sailing with my family around these islands and have felt the deep sense of peace that speaks through the water and the land. Small islands, distant shores, the open horizon - these take on the feeling of sacred ground, of places to protect. Home is just that: a cherished space with its own life and vitality, each one different and unique.
Michelle Nguyen | Water Features
3045 Granville Street, Vancouver
October 16 - 30, 2021
"Water Features", Michelle Nguyen's fourth show with Bau-Xi, uses human and animal bodies in varying states to explore notions of identity, existence, historical erasure and ecological grief. Her canvases are populated by elegant, humorous or even grotesque figures, in conjunction with carefully selected vegetation and objects – all often iterations of classical motifs - that appear to be part dream, part nightmare, struggling with the dissolution of self. Nguyen uses vividly coloured oil paints to conjure worlds dense with magical realism, symbolism, and narrative, prompted by her own experiences and observations as a child of Vietnamese refugees.
Sheri Bakes | Open the World
Bau-Xi Gallery Vancouver
September 8-22, 2018
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 8, 2-4PM
Open the World is a body of work inspired by a farm on Vancouver Island.
The title stems from a painting that was made upon arriving to this farm and depicts a heavily abstracted opening of light through a forest of trees along a fleshy coloured rain soaked muddy path.
Marshall McLuhan wrote, "I think of art, at its most significant, as a DEW line, a Distant Early Warning System that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it."
Part of the interest in making this show has been to explore and trace out an opening; a light-line thread of hope through McLuhan's thoughts on art as a 'distant early warning system.'
These works are simply meditations on light, movement and somatic, tactile experience in nature.
VIEW THE SHERI BAKES COLLECTION