Kyle Scheurmann featured in the Vancouver Guardian
“A Day in the Life” with: Visual Artist Kyle Scheurmann
In a moment when ecosystems are unravelling and wildfires reshape the land, artist and activist Kyle Scheurmann asks us to look closer. Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1988, Scheurmann completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Ontario College of Art and Design in 2013. In 2018, he completed his Master of Fine Arts at Emily Carr University of Art and Design, Vancouver, where he was given the honour of Valedictorian.
Known for his immersive, emotionally charged paintings of wilderness and climate tension, Scheurmann brings viewers face to face with a landscape on the edge – burning, blooming, grieving, and growing. From old-growth blockades to wildfire-scarred clearings, his paintings are visual meditations on environmental collapse and the resilience that endures in its wake.
Scheurmann’s work 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.
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 organizer 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 to share holistic approaches to land stewardship as a means for new art making.
Which ’hood are you in?
I just moved back to Toronto for the first time in 10 years, to Dundas West. Until recently, I’d been living in the forest far from any type of culture, food or anything social. Now I’m walking distance from so many incredible restaurants, galleries, art stores and friends – it’s a real treat. I feel like a bear coming out of a long hibernation and seeing the sky again.
What do you do?
I’m a painter and environmental activist. My paintings knit together big narratives about the realities of climate change on the ground in some of Canada’s most endangered ecosystems. This work relies heavily on my research and lived experience; living at blockades, hiking clearcuts, hunting wildfires and collaborating with conservationists. I spend a lot of time on logging roads… but it’s worth it. All the information I collect comes back to the studio with me and gets turned into colourful oil paintings, while simultaneously fuelling the fundraising and awareness campaigns I facilitate.
What are you currently working on?
I just started painting a new show that opens April 2026 at Bau-Xi Gallery. All the reference material comes from the 2-month research trip I just finished over the summer that took me to some incredible, magical, terrifying spots all across BC. Visiting ancient forests full of 1000+ year old trees as tall as skyscrapers, getting caught in active wildfires in remote northern mountains, hiking protected forests that I’ve been helping to protect for years now. I’m treating the new show like a novel where each painting is a different chapter, revealing a new story about the hard work being done by activists and conservationists on the ground to fight back against climate collapse.
Where can we find your work?
Instagram is the best place to see what I’m doing week-to-week, @kylescheurmann. The Bau-Xi Gallery website has a great selection of new work. And my website is a pretty complete archive of my paintings from the last 5 or so years. Finally, you can check out a recent short documentary about my work, ‘A Beautiful Resistance,’ on the Bau-Xi YouTube.