Darlene Cole | Dance in a Storm
Darlene Cole | Dance in a Storm
December 4 - 22, 2025
Bau-Xi Gallery | Dufferin
1384 Dufferin Street, Toronto
Opening reception: Saturday, December 6th from 2 - 4 pm | Artist in Attendance
This December, we are proud to present Dance in a Storm, a transcendent exhibition by acclaimed Canadian painter, Darlene Cole. With this emotive body of work, the artist explores the interconnectivity between the act of painting, the resulting imagery, and how it is guided by themes of vulnerability, resilience, and kindness.
Artist Statement:
More and more I am drawn in by the physicality of oil paint and how it moves. Each pigment has its own characteristics - warm, cool, tenderness and depth - like translucent layers of skin. When working with figures and animals, there’s an attentiveness to how the paint moves and how the body moves…like a dance.
In these paintings, I feel a hushed chatter behind the curtain of our daily lives in the form of abstraction - the drama, lights and darks, and mystery. Flowers emerge from atmospheric backgrounds or are veiled by vintage curtains, perhaps a form of escapism in a world shadowed by uncertainty.
I invite the viewer to savour the deeper meaning of the interconnectedness that we share as humans and with nature through themes of vulnerability, resilience and kindness. Each work is a reminder of beauty in a chaotic world - a dance where tension melts. - Darlene Cole
Co-Director of Bau-Xi Gallery, Kyle Matuzewiski, writes:
I have always cherished the elegant simplicity within Darlene’s practice. Hers is one of economy; but not in a way which ever comes at the expense of the resulting work.
Every brushstroke feels contemplative; every application of pigment has the distinct impression of careful consideration. At times her work can feel phantasmic – however it is always rooted within an element of reality. Her figures act as grounding forces which pull the viewer back into the present, yet not enough that it breaks the spell they are under.
The sheer vicissitude of resulting emotions I see individuals experience when taking in Darlene’s work never ceases to amaze me. Joy, sadness, love, loss, fear, excitement – they are all there – being pulled from within the viewer.
This delicate and nuanced process is on full display with Dance in a Storm.
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Darlene Cole captures a hazy, haunting world of poetry and wonder. The artist’s distinct oil painting techniques lend a watercolour effect to her subjects without compromising rich colour values and velvety textures. Cole’s canvases—dreamy expanses inhabited by spirited figures—are studies of time and memory.
These figures, both human and animal, play a pivotal role, evoking emotional responses in the viewer as Cole navigates between layers of reference and meaning. At once playful and melancholic, Cole’s work draws on themes characteristic of her established painting career: the inherent mystery of old architectural interiors, the power of painterly colour and texture to spark memory, and the exploration of childhood innocence and its loss.
Cole's work is extensively collected across Canada and internationally. Notable public collections include The Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Tom Thomson Art Gallery, the K.F. Preueter Collection of Canadian Art, Royal Bank of Canada, CIBC, OCAD University, Fairmont Hotels (Toronto, Montreal, Banff), and Manulife Financial.