Exhibitions

David Leventi | Intermission
April 16 - 30, 2022
RECEPTION: Saturday, April 23, 2-5 PM. Artist in Attendance.
350 Dundas Street West, Toronto

Bau-Xi Gallery presents Intermission, a collection of photographs from New York–based photographer, David Leventi. Expanding on his seminal series, Opera—the title and contents of the artist’s first monograph—Leventi now turns his gaze to the world’s rare trompe-l’œil painted curtains.

The tradition of hanging a curtain in the liminal space between performance and spectator—art and reality—has existed for centuries. The curtain has become a fourth wall that both veils in-house preparations and heightens the desire to see the action that is about to unfold.

The painted theatre curtain takes on a particular magic by conflating that separation and presenting another layer of trickery. These deceptive masterpieces derive from an ancient Greek tale of two artists, Parrhasios and Zeuxis. In competition to show who had more illusionary skill, the two artists each created their own distinct trompe-l’œil paintings. While Zeuxis’ depicted a still life with grapes that fooled nearby birds, Parrhasios triumphed by painting a curtain that appeared so real it needed to be drawn back to reveal the still life partially concealed behind.

In his signature typographic style, Leventi has lensed architectural portraits of these curtains, fashioning yet another mask over the theatrical box of illusions. Captivated by the rich hues that occupy these spaces, this series of color studies is a microcosm of his opera houses and a restaging of the palpable anticipation felt prior to the curtain’s initial pull.

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About the Artist

David Leventi is an established American photographer, recognized for his ability to capture meticulously detailed architectural interiors. Leventi is best known for his acclaimed series OPERA, which has been exhibited internationally.

Leventi's photographs have been widely published in TIME, The New York Times Magazine, ESPN The Magazine, FT Weekend Magazine, Condé Nast Traveler, among others. In 2007, Leventi was selected by Photo District News as one of their Top 30 Emerging Photographers. His work has been included in the 2008 Communication Arts Photography Annual and in the 2008, 2012 and 2013 editions of American Photography. Leventi is the recipient of two Graphis Gold awards, has been a two-time Photolucida Critical Mass Top 50 Finalist and was a participant at Review Santa Fe in 2010. 

Leventi's photography is included in prestigious private and public collections including The Sir Elton John Collection and The Cleveland Museum of Art.

Anda Kubis | Aura of Days
April 2-14, 2022 
OPENING Saturday April 2nd, 1-3PM
340 Dundas Street West, Toronto
 
Bau-Xi Gallery presents, Aura of Days, an exhibition of exciting new oil paintings by Anda Kubis. Kubis, who has shown widely across North America and Europe, engages the viewer through energetic compositions rich in colour.

Artist Statement:

"Observing seasonal shifts in light and atmosphere preoccupy me. I have no intention of depicting these scenes directly, yet I know that I’m influenced by them. Through the varied intensities and the wild colours of a sunrise, to the dizzying motion of clouds, or the feeling of vastness while standing in an open landscape, I am driven to reminisce with nature and contemplate time. Yet, my work is not quiet nor retiring. Vibrant compositions throw the viewer slightly off balance with layered perceptual effects. Painted quickly and vigorously, my painting process eventually slows to an excruciating pace where subtle decisions on colour tonalities and spatial relationships draw out over weeks. Ultimately my paintings are an indulgence in looking and seeing to discovering colour, light and formal plays – all tinged by the experience of a recent rural life."
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Numerous public and private collections have acquired Kubis’ work, including RBC, TD Bank, BMO, Cenovus Energy, Aimia, The Westaim Corporation, and the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development. Kubis currently holds the position of Director of the Haliburton School of Art + Design at Fleming College.

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Andre Petterson | Horizon
3045 Granville Street, Vancouver
April 2-14, 2022

Bau-Xi Gallery presents Horizon, a new and timely series from celebrated Vancouver artist Andre Petterson. Working in his signature mixed media format integrating photography and paint, Petterson continues to explore the reality of climate change, this time focusing on the elements of rebirth and hope. Traditionally understood markers of calm - trees, flowers, fountains and charming house fronts - are digitally placed dissonantly beyond the shoreline or at the foot of frothing waves, yet continue to bloom and gleam in the sun despite the rising waters. The compositions are then dappled with brushstrokes, further suggesting  the amorphous realm of thought and "What If".  

Gavin Lynch | The Seasons Reverse
March 19-31, 2022
340 Dundas Street West, Toronto

From March 19-31, Bau-Xi Gallery presents the inaugural exhibition for Gavin Lynch, in his highly anticipated show The Seasons Reverse.

Featuring new artwork by the artist, The Seasons Reverse observes Lynch’s signature contemporary, texturally nuanced paintings. Drawing on various movements in art history, fiction, environmental degradation, and nature itself for inspiration, the artist challenges the traditional landscape with his collage-inspired approach and exceptional visual presentation. By employing subtle pixelation within his work, Lynch considers the increased consumption of the natural world through digitized means, rather than the physical experience.

Artist Statement:

“The Seasons Reverse began with a simple idea: to create a cast of fictional landscapes that existed beyond the effects of humans, in which nature was left to its own accord to recover, rebound and even flourish. A post human speculative fictional, if you will. However, unlike much of the literary speculative fiction being written today, I was interested in eschewing depictions of the dystopian in favour of hopeful, meditative spaces. Perhaps there is yet some agency in the notion of beauty acting as an inspiration for humans to have urgency in meeting the climate crisis head on. Naturally all of this was just a departure point, the pieces inevitably took on a life of their own.

Narratively, the show begins and ends with paintings of the sun, rising and setting, which provide pictorial bookends to the exhibition, while referencing the natural solar cycle to which we are all tethered. I thought of the show as embodying a half rotation of the Earth, from dusk till dawn.

Individually, many of the paintings were composed as digital collages (a first for me), which cobbled together multitudes of images of varying forested areas in North America: snippets of the California Redwoods are grafted with the West Coast Rainforest and then inserted into the woods surrounding my home in Western Quebec, for instance. Source imagery ranged from pictures from my personal database, to photos donated by close friends, to stock imagery from the internet.

As such, these paintings are hypothetical-hybrid spaces, contained pictorial spaces wherein nature has cloned and grafted itself, sometimes containing multiple light sources, impossible perspectives and otherworldly palettes. As with a lot of my work, collage is front and centre as a working methodology, in both the preparatory and final works. Parts of one motif repeat and morph into another, almost as though being cut and pasted across space-time.

Leading up to the production of the show I read both non-fiction and fiction that address these ideas of how nature will respond to a decline in human pollution and destruction. Namely Cal Flyn's book Islands of Abandonment: Nature Rebounding in the Post Human Landscape resonated with me, in which she poetically examines real environments that have been severely damaged by humans and then have been subsequently abandoned. Remarkably some of the most ecologically devastated spaces in the world are now, after being abandoned by humans, amongst the most biodiverse in the world.

By no means a justification for our impact on the planet, but a hopeful sign that nature could in fact prosper, if we can only right our course.”

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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.

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Mel Gausden | A Fairytale for the End of the World
3045 Granville Street, Vancouver
Upper Gallery

March 5-19, 2022

Toronto-based painter Mel Gausden explores the deep and rich atmosphere of nightscapes in her new series. Always with hints of wistfulness and nostalgia, she captures the differences in light and colour that the falling of dusk reveals, as well as the feeling of uneasiness that can often accompany the darkness. A rare display of Gausden's watercolour and mixed media working sketches accompanies the final finished counterparts.

Gausden's work combines symbols and markers of Canadiana with painterly gesture, mark-making, and bold highlights. Neon touches add a contemporary freshness and highlight the inherent distortion of personal perspective.

Her process is significantly determined by the time it takes for her source material to become tinged with nostalgia. Once memories are bound to her source images, the narrative emerges and is rendered in paint. Gausden’s diluting of the oil paint and allowing it to drip with controlled precision augments the contemporary feel and alludes to the amorphous nature of memories.

Alex Cameron | The Crashing Plane & Other New Paintings
February 5-19, 2022
340 Dundas Street West, Toronto

In his first exhibition since 2020, Cameron continues his celebration of the Canadian landscape through pure pigment, this time welcoming a lighter palette to complement the rich, chromatic, works for which the artist is known. Cameron’s application is controlled with an impossibly tactile three-dimensionality that is a hallmark of his energetic canvases and his complex visual lexicon.

Alex Cameron’s paintings have been collected extensively in Canada and abroad. Notable collections include the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Royal Bank of Canada, and The Queen’s Silver Jubilee Art Collection.

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Lori Nix & Dan Dubowitz | Spaces
350 Dundas Street West, Toronto
February 5-19, 2022

This February, Bau-Xi Photo Gallery presents Spaces, a dual exhibition featuring the works of photographers Lori Nix and Dan Dubowitz.

Examining the relationship between the viewer and built environments, both Nix and Dubowitz evoke raw emotion and contemplation through their respective collections. Through masterful interpretation of intricate lighting and complementary textures, both artists uniquely capture powerful settings and the dynamism they convey.

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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.