Kathryn Macnaughton | Undercurrents | Advance Preview

The preview period has now closed. All paintings are now available for viewing on Kathryn Macnaughton's artist page. Please click here to see all available works in this collection.

Kathryn Macnaughton | Undercurrents
October 9 - November 3, 2025
Bau-Xi Gallery | Dufferin
1384 Dufferin Street, Toronto
Opening reception: Thursday, October 9th, 5:30 - 7:30 pm | Artist in Attendance

This month, Bau-Xi Gallery | Dufferin is delighted to present Undercurrents, an enthralling exhibition by Canadian abstract painter Kathryn Macnaughton. In this body of work, Macnaughton seeks to explore the interplay between control and chance, resulting in unexpected harmonies and tensions. The resulting paintings aim to create a field of sensation, inviting viewers to engage with the abstraction on a personal and emotional level. 

Artist Statement:

My paintings emerge from a process of layered pours and sweeping motions, where colour and form drift between intention and accident. 

Each surface becomes a record of movement: pigment flowing, colliding, and pooling into unexpected harmonies and tensions. I am fascinated in the space where control meets chance and where something deliberate turns into something you cannot fully plan for.

A big part of this process involves the use of a squeegee, and although it is expressed by repeated gestures, the outcome is always guaranteed to be different. It is that unpredictability which draws me in. Screen printing also has a strong influence - the layering, transparency, and reiteration. Even though I am not exploring this process in a traditional sense, that same mindset shapes the way I approach my paintings.

I never start with a fixed image. Instead, each layer responds to the one before it. Broad areas of reds, greens, and blue shades shift in density. Sometimes they are opaque, at other times translucent - letting traces of those earlier gestures show through. It creates a kind of rhythm, where the edges of colours between forms are just as important as the forms themselves.

These works explore how abstraction can hold both fluidity and structure. I’m not aiming to depict anything specific, but to create a field of sensation. A space where viewers can drift and make their own associations.

Ultimately, I am chasing that moment where the physicality of the paint shifts into something more intangible - a feeling of time passing, of boundaries dissolving, of being suspended between order and chaos. – Kathryn Macnaughton

All artworks are now available for acquisition. To secure a piece, please contact us at 416-977-0600 or toronto@bau-xi.com.