Exhibitions

Janna Watson | Emotion Potion
May 8 - June 2, 2025
Bau-Xi Gallery | Dufferin
1384 Dufferin Street, Toronto
Opening reception: Saturday, May 10th, 2 - 5 pm | Artist in attendance

Created during a series of intense winter storms, Janna Watson's newest exhibition, Emotion Potion, emerged from the quiet isolation of a forest studio, where swirling snow and changing light inspired deep reflection. The paintings channel the ever-shifting energy of nature as a metaphor for the heart - volatile, joyful, and beautifully transformative. Within this stillness and solitude, the studio became a place of emotional clarity, creative conversation, and quiet revelation.

Artist statement:

“The heart is a good composition.” — Lisa Cristinzo, Artist

“In a sustained rush of vitality—swirling colours, tangled reveries, glimpses of light, lines of conversation, and the view of the storm—these paintings developed from atmosphere and feeling. The ever-changing energy of nature is a metaphor for the heart. The heart can be volatile and joyful, and its pressured friction destroys who we think we are and then allows beauty to emerge.

Snowbound and then icebound, this body of work emerged during several wild winter storms.

As an introvert, I don’t enjoy being centre stage, but my silent audience of trees and rocks peering in on me – through the large windows of my secluded forest studio – was profoundly humbling, and surprisingly welcome. The magic of natural light shifted throughout the day and night, creeping onto my palettes.

Snow swirled through the trees and blanketed branches as though they were wearing sleeves of whipped cream. My view became an ever-changing scene, shifted by gusts, slow movements, ruptures and even stillness. Within the joy of isolation, after being snowed in for more than a week straight, I had many conversations with my best friend – also a painter – about the studio as a place of heart.

How do we get our hearts to resonate with a composition? This was a concept we discussed at great length.

For me, the goal of painting has been to allow the work to reflect in the place of my heart. It is a language that bypasses the mind, straight onto the panel. To get to the heart, there is a level of surrender that allows one to enter the realm of the sublime. It is well-known that meditation, prayer, and reveling in nature can do much the same. During this time of creation and deep reflection, my studio has become a place where the inner and outer landscapes have united.

Within this body of work, I have designed the paintings to be interconnected. On an individual basis, I see them as whole, but they will always be integrated into a larger, more expansive picture.” – Janna Watson

Watson holds an honours degree in Drawing and Painting from the Ontario College of Art and Design and has exhibited extensively across Canada and internationally in more than 40 solo exhibitions. Her work has appeared in notable public collections including those of TD Bank, CIBC, Nordstrom, Telus, the Ritz-Carlton, ONi ONE, the Soho Metropolitan Hotel, and Saks Fifth Avenue. Watson’s paintings circulate regularly at international fairs and have been covered by publications such as The Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, NOW Magazine, and House & Home.

VIEW THE FULL COLLECTION

David T. Alexander | The Northern Coast: The Second Time Around
Solo Exhibition
April 12 - 26, 2025
3045 Granville Street, Vancouver
Opening Reception: Saturday April 12, 2-4pm | Artist In Attendance
Artist Talk: Saturday April 12, 2:15pm

Bau-Xi Vancouver proudly presents The Northern Coast: The Second Time Around, the highly anticipated new solo exhibition from established, award-winning Canadian painter David T. Alexander. After moving back to the West Coast of Canada from the interior of BC after many years, Alexander sees it with fresh eyes, presenting rich and painterly additions to his wet and dry series in a lively, heightened colour palette. This solo exhibition marks Alexander's first in four years in Vancouver.

The April 12 opening reception of The Northern Coast: The Second Time Around will feature an artist talk beginning at 2:15pm.

Artist statement:

Moving back to British Columbia makes me very aware that I have been issued a learner’s license for what I thought I knew about what this ocean and land really are. The density of the land and the richer colours are different in my mind now. It has also required me to make frequent trips up the coastline over the last four years to take it all in. This time, I’m not working in a large tugboat but concentrating on how I am living here once again, the second time around: I am living on the edge of land, facing the vast expanse of change and familiar sameness on the coast.

- David T. Alexander, 2025


VIEW THE FULL COLLECTION

Vicky Christou | Material Memories
April 3 - 28, 2025
Bau-Xi Gallery | Dufferin
1384 Dufferin Street, Toronto
Opening reception: Saturday, April 5th, 2 - 4 pm

The past becomes the present in Vicky Christou's newest solo exhibition Material Memories, an exploration of emotion, memory, and self-awareness tied to the materiality of everyday objects and environments. The Melbourne-born, Vancouver-based artist uses her renowned multi-dimensional style of painting to create order, a connection with breath, time and a recollection of landscape in this intimate collection. 

Artist Statement:

“In my latest exhibition Material Memories, I have further explored references to textiles and craft within the context of an open grid painting system. I have contemplated how objects and environments possess the capability to evoke memories and influence my present-day awareness. I am curious and inspired by how these recollective associations influence my perceptive and emotional states of being as my past becomes part of my present. 

In paintings, such as Shadow and Flame I used the traditional horizontal format to reference an abstracted form of a remembered landscape. I incorporate an expanded visual vocabulary of painting methods, all constructed by use of extruded impasto lines layered to create concentric formations. Throughout this new body of work, diagonal and rhythmic lines combined with palettes of chromatic tonal shifts act as signifiers to natural elements alluding to water, earth, sky, sun, moon, wind, day and night.

These elemental variables pose as poetic states of observation, subtle reflections of momentary perceptions, meditative and peaceful. 

My intent is to create order, a connection with breath, time and a recollection of landscape. The crafted materiality of my painting’s surfaces connects them to a personal narrative and lineage to traditional textiles. My interest in the politics of gendered histories, combining craft with intuitive abstract expressions informs my artistic process. 

Material Memories furthers my creative pursuit of guiding principles and expressions of themes and mark making.” – Vicky Christou 

Born in Melbourne, Australia, Vicky Christou (b. 1966) immigrated to Canada with her family in 1969. In 1991, Christou graduated from the Emily Carr College of Art and Design after specializing in painting throughout her studies. The artist explored visual themes of infinity and domestic crafts through the Post-Modern form of the grid. A grid of acrylic impasto covers the surface of each work, offering varying glimpses into the layers of colour of the composition beneath. Through this practice, the artist has created a unique multi-dimensional style of painting that has become synonymous with her studio. 

Christou's work explores the illusionary play between colour, proportion, and pattern. Christou constructs a dimensional surface by meticulously applying layers of lines of acrylic paint by hand. The accumulated paint lines create an optical play between colour, form and space. Christou’s highly textured surfaces defy traditional distinctions between painting, sculpture and craft.

The artist lives and works in East Vancouver.

VIEW THE FULL COLLECTION

Sylvia Tait | Repertoire
Retrospective Solo Exhibition
March 22 - April 5, 2025
3045 Granville Street, Vancouver
Opening Reception: Saturday March 22, 2-4pm


Bau-Xi Gallery proudly presents Repertoire, a retrospective solo exhibition by celebrated Vancouver-based abstract artist Sylvia Tait. This exhibition constitutes an expansive journey through the artist’s creative evolution from the 1960s to the present, prompted most often by the energy and shifting focuses of the changing times. From vibrant canvases to the restraint of hard-edge serigraphs and the nuanced monochromatic Anthologies series, Tait’s distinct balance of colour, form and structure invites a rich visual dialogue.

Sylvia Tait studied for four years at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts under Arthur Lismer, Jacques de Tonnancoeur, and Eldon Grier.  She has been represented by Bau-Xi Gallery since 1977. Since the late 1950s, Tait has exhibited across North America in solo and group shows. Her paintings are in private, corporate and public collections in Germany, Switzerland, France, the USA, Mexico, Ecuador, UAE, Hong Kong, Japan, South Asia and Canada.

Enduring artist statement excerpts by Sylvia Tait:

“What matters to me is the process and reaching a temporary conclusion for an experience not easily expressible in any other medium… I really just like to place colours beside each other and watch the interaction.” 
– from solo exhibition Fractions and Sequences, 2001

“I see an energy in my paintings, different paths leading to interpretations of feelings of nature and life forces.” 
- from solo exhibition Making Tracks, 2014

“The four-sided forms in the paintings are cool, uncluttered areas that can either house symbols or graphics, or stand alone; they can be sensual, free-floating or firmly grounded. The breakups, or slashes, are the changes and interruptions. They are the shifts in energy. Nothing is permanent.” 
- from solo exhibition Paintings Without Words, 2023

VIEW THE FULL COLLECTION

Gallery Artists | Menagerie
March 6 - 31, 2025
Bau-Xi Gallery | Dufferin
1384 Dufferin Street, Toronto
Opening reception: Saturday, March 8th, 2 - 5 pm

Bau-Xi Gallery | Dufferin is thrilled to present Menagerie, the dynamic group exhibition featuring work by Richard Barnes, Darlene Cole, Jill Greenberg, and Casey McGlynn. 

From humble and ritualistic beginnings conveyed in the Lascaux Caves, artists have been ardent documentarians of our eternal fascination and reverence for the animal kingdom throughout history. While Menagerie explores this aspect of our humanity via modern painting and photographic practices, the pursuit remains much the same. These featured artists share their unique perspectives on the subjects they portray in their work; whether it be the majesty of their stature, documentation for future generations, or imbuing feeling and emotion via anthropomorphist tendencies.

VIEW THE FULL COLLECTION

Nicole Katsuras | The Diver And The Pearl
March 6 - 31, 2025
Bau-Xi Gallery | Dufferin
1384 Dufferin Street, Toronto
Opening reception: Saturday, March 8th, 2 - 5 pm | Artist in attendance

This March, Bau-Xi Gallery | Dufferin is proud to present The Diver And The Pearl, the perceptive new solo exhibition by Toronto-based artist, Nicole Katsuras. The Diver And The Pearl is an insightful metaphor on our collective journey through life, teaching us to navigate the world around us with hope and curiosity as we strive to uncover “pearls” along the way. Inspired by the elements of water, Ama Divers, the historical movements of CoBrA, Impressionism and Ukiyo-e, the artist invites the viewer to explore these floating worlds. 

Artist statement:

"How could you reach the pearl by only looking at the sea? If you seek the pearl, be a diver" – Rumi. 

“Like life, the sea is full of mystery and the unknown. Individually, our life’s journeys are unique, as is our search. 

But the search for this “pearl” is universal — mixed with a bit of luck, our set of circumstances, goals and determination.  We need to be like the divers, searching the great depths, collecting oysters along the way, and hoping that with a bit of hard work and good fortune, we may find a pearl or two in this lifetime.  

For me, the art of painting and the sea are great metaphors of life and how we choose to use our limited time. These “floating worlds” in The Diver And The Pearl are made up of abstract and gestural forms. Swaths of rich colour, lines, and extrusions operate as archetypal forms of landscape - mountains, pools of water, trees, meadows, flora and fauna - that I revisit throughout my body of work.  In this series, the Ama Divers were subjects and starting points for these new paintings and works on paper. This combined with the spirit of the historical movements CoBrA, Impressionism and Ukiyo-e provided the platform to experiment with paint.” – Nicole Katsuras

Katsuras develops her paintings with pure oil paint, using saturated colours in abstract forms to create imagined places. The compositions and viewpoints negotiate surface and depth as well as abstraction and representation. The elements of water are the most prominent in this series, with waterfalls, swirling pools, and deep dark seas acting as abstract passages for the viewer to explore. The piece “Freedive” represents a network of bright oil impasto and extrusions on a moody deep blue background. It is inspired by the woodblock print Abalone Divers by Utagawa Kuniyoshi which depicts divers in the depths of the savage sea and Claude Monet’s Wild Coast at Belle-Ile (1886), a scene of the untamed waters crashing and swirling on dark moody rocks.

In addition to this collection of oil paintings, Katsuras incorporates a series of small paintings on paper using Gouache. The piece “Mermaid” stands out, suggesting a floating underwater world with the skyline above, evoking the work To the Sea and Sun, 1922 by Wassily Kandinsky.

Nicole Katsuras was born in Toronto, Canada. She received a Master of Fine Arts from Central Saint Martins School of Art and Design in London, UK, and a Bachelor of Arts with Honours from the University of Toronto. Her work can be found in many corporate collections including McCarthy Tetrault, Canaccord, Encana, Bennett Jones, CIBC, Luciano Benetton, Mirvish Collection, and Holt Renfrew.

Nicole Katsuras’ approach embraces various traditions in art history while attempting to create a new formal vocabulary. Informed by the nuances of the oil medium and a plethora of visual stimuli, Katsuras uses a bold yet intricate extruded paint technique to compose lively, elegant, emotion-filled and playful abstract scenes.

Nicole Katsuras has exhibited in Toronto, Seattle, Palm Beach, London, Seoul, and Paris. Her work is part of both private and public collections across North America and Europe.

VIEW THE FULL COLLECTION

Gallery Artists | Chroma
February 6 - March 3, 2025
Bau-Xi Gallery | Dufferin
1384 Dufferin Street, Toronto
Opening reception: Saturday, February 8th, 2 - 5 pm

This February, Bau-Xi Gallery | Dufferin is proud to present Chroma, a group exhibition featuring work by Erin Armstrong, Gavin Lynch, Kathryn Macnaughton, and Sheri Paisley (Bakes).

Chroma refers to the purity and depth of a colour. An artist will employ chroma in a myriad of ways, whether it be a vibrant pop, pulling your eye towards certain elements of the composition – or a dark richness, creating a sense of contrast and depth. Each of these artists uses high chroma in their respective practices. As a result, their work is bold and energetic, often applying paint directly from the tube, only adding tints, tones, and shades by necessity. These artists are able to utilize these techniques to create uniquely stunning work, catching your eye, and drawing you in to absorb one colour after another.

VIEW THE FULL COLLECTION