Kyle Scheurmann | We’re All In This Together
June 5 - 30, 2025
Bau-Xi Gallery | Dufferin
1384 Dufferin Street, Toronto
Opening Reception: Thursday, June 5th, 5 - 8 pm | Artist in Attendance
Artist Talk & Documentary Preview: Saturday, June 7th, 2 - 4 pm
In a moment when ecosystems are unraveling and wildfires reshape the land, artist and activist Kyle Scheurmann asks us to look closer. His upcoming exhibition, We’re All In This Together, opening this June, offers an unflinching yet tender portrait of British Columbia’s forests in flux - where beauty and devastation coexist, and where sustained attention becomes both an artistic act and an ethical one. Through vivid, densely layered paintings, Scheurmann invites us into a world on fire, still pulsing with life.
We welcome guests to enjoy Kyle Scheurmann’s artist talk on Saturday, June 7th, 2025 from 2:00 – 4:00 PM at Bau-Xi Gallery | Dufferin. During this event, guests will hear the artist speak to his experience creating this compelling body of work, and a screening of “A Beautiful Resistance” – a short documentary about the artist's practice as journalism, conservation and activism.
About the exhibition:
Essay by Liz Toohey-Wiese, artist and educator speaking on Kyle Scheurmann’s upcoming exhibition We're All In This Together:
“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”
-Simone Weil, from “The First and Last Notebooks”
To truly know a landscape—to study its details, immerse in its rhythms, and then witness its gradual disappearance year after year—is to commit to having your heart broken over and over again. Across the forests of British Columbia, drought, wildfires, and pest infestations proliferate, as we extract value from the land as quickly as possible through unsustainable logging practices. These rapid changes unfold faster than most of us realize, yet through his paintings, Kyle remains steadfast in his attention.
Amid these steady declines in our biosphere, the natural rhythms of the planet continue to find ways to flourish. This paradox is disorienting– the earth is simultaneously living and dying, all at the same time. When Kyle has spoken to me about his experiences painting sites of logging blockades, old-growth forests, and remote wilderness locations many of us will never travel to, this contrast stood out repeatedly: alongside loss there is overwhelming beauty, and they can be found existing side-by-side.
I see this holding of dual realities reflected in both the human and the more-than-human figures in Kyle’s paintings, and I often wonder how these characters feel about the worlds they inhabit. In one composition, a burning tree contains numerous beings scattered throughout its branches: a perched bald eagle and a northern goshawk, a flock of Stellar’s jays, a pair of black bears, along with a group of land defenders. Meanwhile, loggers strung up in the canopy and positioned at the base of the tree work to harvest its timber. To various degrees, these characters all seem to be ignoring the reality of the raging fire engulfing the tree– except for one lone figure standing on a stump, presumably the artist. His upward gaze suggests total awareness of the scene unfolding before him.
In another painting a house under construction is cocooned in Tyvek, surrounded by a clearing of fallen, burnt trees. Three figures are working to rebuild the house. With hands and tools, support and determination, they are piecing together something new. On one side, smouldering fires burn; on the other, fireweed blooms. I see these three figures representing all of us: rebuilding and tending to a world on fire, while the intelligent, resilient, and reparative natural processes of the earth unfold beside us.
While the imagery in this new series of work is haunting– of animals on fire, tiny helicopters dwarfed by growing conflagrations, and the charred remains of a burnt home– there is no denying Kyle’s paintings are captivating.
The landscapes he paints are full of generosity, both in what is depicted, and how it is depicted. Bears gorge themselves on more salmon than they could possibly eat. People pick berries while ankle-deep in overflowing streams. Flowers and ferns and saplings push up and proliferate across any bare patch of land.
How do we live with this ambiguity, this simultaneous living and dying, this renewal alongside destruction? How do we grieve the damage that has been done while still finding the energy to tend to what remains? And how do we keep looking and not turn away—from climate collapse, from the increasing instability of our ecosystems, from the truth of what is unfolding?
When I’ve stood in a gallery of Kyle’s work, I’ve seen this: people curled in close, their faces hovering just inches from the canvas. The vivid colours, intricate details, and layered compositions invite us into these overflowing landscapes, our eyes guided by dense linework depicting the movement of land and water. I’ve seen curiosity on people’s faces, mouths shaped into soft “wow”s, fingers suspended in the air, tracing invisible paths of discovery as more and more of the world within the painting is revealed. Through aesthetics, we are invited into proximity.
In that act of looking—of sustained attention trained onto Kyle’s paintings—we are shown something vital: that we already have the capacity to stay close to the uncomfortable reality of what is happening in this moment of our earth’s history. We already know how to attune our eyes towards the beauty that will sustain us. And that woven in with the sharp pain of witnessing loss, we can also feel the grounded joy of being present with everything that is still here with us. - Liz Toohey-Wiese
Co-director of Bau-Xi Gallery, Kyle Matuzewiski, lends his thoughts on Kyle Scheurmann’s work and what it stands for in today’s climate:
My conversations with Kyle are peppered with memorable phrases. While our discussions are centered on the developing body of work, we frequently meander into the all-encompassing. We discuss current events, philosophy, social movements and our future – both as individuals and as a collective.
One of those utterances keeps playing over and over in my head, like a needle skipping on a record: “I am an environmentalist, because I am a humanitarian.”
I recall having to ask Kyle to repeat himself, as the profound sentiment of the comment caught me off guard. It was like I had just experienced conversational whiplash. In that singular moment, the way in which I look at his work shifted forever.
Environmentalism and humanitarianism are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Simply because we wish to protect the natural world around us, it does not mean it requires impingement where the conditions for humanity are concerned. What it does require is a baseline for collective empathy and progressive values, specifically with “sustainability” in mind. I emphasize that word with quotations as it has been bandied about over the years.
The broader concept of sustainability – “meeting the needs of the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” – is one that has been corrupted and used to greenwash many a thing. Even with our aim to foster sustainability, it can have long-lasting impacts. Simply because we cut down hundreds of old-growth trees – to use in housing developments, for instance – and replant hundreds (or thousands) more, does not make it any less consequential. In fact, it is far more devastating.
This brings us to the work Kyle has created for We’re All In This Together. The artist has witnessed these impacts firsthand. He stood alongside Forest Protectors at Fairy Creek. He has traversed the carcasses of old-growth, savagely hacked down with corporate interests at heart. He has aligned himself with conservation groups actively supporting real reconciliation with the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island.
The culmination of these experiences is carefully and meticulously documented throughout his practice, for all to see. He sees this work as part of a larger discourse, entrenched in both environmentalism and humanitarianism.
Even with ample cause to be disheartened, he perseveres, seeking to capture viewers and demonstrate that there is still magic in the world. - Kyle Matuzewiski
Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1988, Kyle Scheurmann completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Ontario College of Art and Design, Toronto in 2013. In 2018, Scheurmann completed his Master of Fine Arts at Emily Carr University of Art and Design, Vancouver.
Since 2019, Scheurmann has kept studios in remote, wooded locations to document the incremental approach of climate change while simultaneously working on conservation and activism efforts. In 2021, the artist was invited to participate in the Eden Grove AiR, a residency at the Fairy Creek Blockades on unceded Pacheedaht territory. During his four-month stay at the blockade camps, Scheurmann served not only as a resident artist but also as a journalist and legal witness in the face of the injustices carried out by law enforcement against Forest Protectors who were fighting to save some of the last remaining highly productive ancient forests in Canada.
Since this experience, Scheurmann has been working towards systemic and legislative approaches for permanent environmental protection, including aligning himself with the conservationist group, the Nature-Based Solutions Foundations (NBSF), as the creator and host of the Art Auction for Old-Growth. He was also involved with the foundation of a new environmentally focused residency at the Harvest Moon Learning Centre in Clearwater MB, collaborating with experimental regenerative farmers in order to share holistic approaches to land stewardship as a means for new art making.
WATCH KYLE SCHEURMANN'S DOCUMENTARY "A BEAUTIFUL RESISTANCE" HERE
VIEW THE FULL COLLECTION
