Darlene Cole | Reverie
Darlene Cole | Reverie
December 3-17, 2022
340 Dundas St West, Toronto
Opening Reception: Saturday, December 3 2022 | 1-3 PM - Artist in attendance
Bau-Xi is thrilled to present Reverie, a stunning collection of new paintings by Canadian artist Darlene Cole.
Gary Michael Dault once wrote, “Darlene Cole’s paintings are filled with the very fragrance of paradox. They feel immediate, for example, as if they have been painted rapidly from life, on the fly, as notations rather than deliberations, all the while crystallizing and enshrining the innocence of a dreamtime that shimmers in the haze of Cole’s effulgence light like memory.”
On her latest collection, the artist writes:
"Tapping into the deeper theme of ‘reverie’, this cycle of paintings are unforced but unforgettably layered in a time when moments that feel like a dream might help carry us through the shadows…walking in the forest, sitting by the pond or lake, listening to live music, or the burst of a new season.
In the studio, the gesture, light, and mystery were forefront for me along with the intensity of emotion. I approached each canvas in a way that I hadn’t before…thinking of the darkest areas first and allowing the paint and subject matter to emerge from the unknown. In some paintings the figure is present and in another, the figure pivots to be the viewer and encounters a bear…then a swan. I wanted to coax (with paint) the complexity of emotion and sensitivity from nature as a means of solace."
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.