Exhibitions

Erin Armstrong | Don’t Hold Too Tightly To The River Bank
340 Dundas Street West, Toronto
September 11-25, 2021

Bau-Xi Gallery is pleased to present Don’t Hold Too Tightly To The River Bank, a highly anticipated exhibition by Toronto-based painter, Erin Armstrong.

Motivated by the polarizing state of the world that has resulted in a shared experience of isolation, this new body of work presents figures existing in suspense and wait. Through their disorienting surroundings and stolid gazes, Armstrong encapsulates the fleeting moments of “in-between’, relatable anticipation for future plans of which we have more recently recognised the value. Fresh lemons, plucked apricots, blooming and wilting flora, are poignantly positioned in Armstrong’s paintings as symbols of the temporal and fleeting cycles in which we exist.

Lush dripping gardens, brightly patterned clothing, and exotic landscapes feature heavily in the artist’s dynamic exploration into a world of familiarity, yet surrealist daydreams. Drawing from personal experiences, and identifying the collective conscience associated with these recent histories, the Armstrong looks with optimism at the lessons learned and the strength gained from being present.

Erin Armstrong is an emerging figurative artist working and living in Toronto. Using quick and decisive gestural markings over acrylic-based images, Armstrong creates unique distorted figures and portraits in an expressive dream-like world. Juxtaposing the everyday with surrealistic imaginings, Armstrong captures hidden emotions often lost in human experience. Her concern is not to recreate reality as it exists, but rather to evoke an atmosphere that transports the viewer into a world of interpretation.

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Bratsa Bonifacho | Celebration
3045 Granville Street
September 4 - 25, 2021

Acclaimed painter Bratsa Bonifacho returns to form with new vigor in his latest series, Celebration. Reflecting on his decades-long career and his past bodies of work, Bonifacho breaks new ground in his ongoing engagement with semiotics and iconography with his exploration of gridwork and negative space layered over brilliant colour.

The result is a visually fresh textural effect, and a new pictorial lexicon: an abstracted "language" system of characters and symbols that ingeniously references the connecting thread between ancient scripts and modern digital cipher.

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Sheila Kernan | Everything We See
3045 Granville Street
August 7 - 21, 2021

In Everything We See, Calgary-based artist Sheila Kernan’s most recent body of work, the artist reflects upon ineffable moments in time that exist beyond description. Told through the visual conduit of Kernan’s mixed media process and shaped by her own understanding of nature's transience, the artist deconstructs the storied Canadian landscape tradition to offer a new recounting of “everything we see”.

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July 10-24, 2021
350 Dundas Street West, Toronto

In Appearances, Cole attributes her dreamlike photography to “portraits” of anthropomorphized flowers. As the title of the series suggests, these images ask what it means to possess a form (human or otherwise) and what is considered worthy to be the subject of an artist’s attention. This exploration into transformation, nature, and beauty is marked by Cole’s exquisite use of water as a medium that naturally reshapes form.

By anthropomorphizing these flowers with stunning finesse, flitting between what we perceive as photography and painting, Cole expands the possibilities of the photograph and the act of empathy altogether. Isolated like all of us during lockdown, Cole began this series out of necessity but also as an exercise in connection. Each flower is given a human name, imbuing them with personalities which, especially during a time of isolation, remind us of personalities we have all been longing to reconnect with.

By alluding to traditional representations of flowers through her unique contemporary lens, the photographs in Appearances embody a timeless sensibility that likewise further expands Cole’s prolific body of work.

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ART CARES 2021 
3045 Granville Street, Vancouver
June 22 - July 2, 2021

Art Cares was founded in May 2020 by Bau-Xi Gallery in an effort to give back and support the cities that we have called home for over 50 years. The digital charitable exhibition's first edition featured works from over 40 gallery represented artists, with over $57,000 CAD raised at the close of the inaugural programme.

Art Cares donates 100% of the listed artwork value from each piece sold, in support of Food Banks Canada. All marketing, advertising and transactional fees are covered independently by Art Cares. Art Cares 2021 closes on July 2 at 11:59 PM PST.

As essential organizations, food banks continue to support food insecure Canadians. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, they have been met with uncertainty, seeing a loss in financial support and support staff, and an increase in demand. Food Banks Canada has been supporting provincial food bank networks through their coronavirus response efforts, securing food, finances, and volunteers.

Vicki Smith | You Are The Sky. Everything Else Is Just Weather.
3045 Granville Street, Vancouver
June 5-19, 2021

The motivation and title for the artist's new collection of paintings was inspired by Pema Chodron, a Buddhist nun and principal teacher at Gampo Abbey in Nova Scotia, who wisely stated, 'You are the Sky. Everything Else is Just the Weather.'

The artist states:

This quote helps to remind us that we all have a cloudless and clear sky within us. The daily fluctuations of thoughts, emotions and worries create the weather that can cloud our sky. Engaging with art mindfully is a practice that clears thoughts and brings us back to our cloudless sky with a sustained sense of wellbeing. The more mindful we are the more we realize that the weather is just passing by. The clouds may come and go, but the sky is constant, ‘You are the sky’.

Rendered in finely textured impasto, luminous, jewel-toned palettes, and layers of expressive brushwork, Smith's bathers, afloat in changeable waters, speak to a distinct sense of interiority. Transposed onto her canvases, the sunlit ripples and shaded caustics of Smith's source imagery become the medium through which the artist explores the great heights and depths of feeling. 

Vicki Smith's paintings articulate this elemental movement to reveal an underlying quality of stillness fundamental to the artist's practice. With trademark warmth and insight, Smith invites the audience to immerse themselves in the act of viewing and into a state of grace.

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Eric Louie | Second Nature
June 5-19, 2021
340 Dundas Street West, Toronto

Informed by a distinct future-forward aesthetic and formalist sensibilities, Second Nature, a solo exhibition by Eric Louie, explores the interplay between organic environments and digitally composed realities. More so, Louie examines the human response to these crossovers and disparate ways of seeing. The artist’s process of digital drawing and transcribing with oil paint on canvas, delights the viewer with richly layered virtual worlds—rife with colourful shapes, shaded with brightly-hued gradients and accented with chrome-like effects to reinforce a palpable materiality.

Louie holds a B.F.A from the Alberta College of Art and Design, where he was awarded the prestigious Jason Lang Scholarship. His work is included in numerous private and public collections including CIBC, Encana Energy, NBC Studios, Paramount and MGM Pictures, as well as the City of Calgary.

Louie has shown his work nationally over the past decade in more than 25 exhibitions.

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