Exhibitions

Steven Nederveen | Heart Centre
November 16 - 30, 2024
3045 Granville Street, Vancouver
Main Level
Opening Reception: Saturday November 16, 2-4pm

Bau-Xi Gallery is thrilled to present Heart Centre, the new solo exhibition by Toronto-based artist Steven Nederveen. In this new series, Nederveen's signature combination of painting and photography is heightened by soft colour fields to fashion a dreamlike world of peaceful clarity. Expansive coastal vistas harmonized with these colour fields serve to symbolize connections between our natural environment and aspects of spirituality.

Artist Statement

This new collection brings the viewer into a soft expanse where the universe becomes a kind and gentle extension of ourselves. Surrender to the timeless power of the ocean while being transported to an ephemeral dreaminess through glowing fields of saturated colour.

My work is heavily influenced by meditation practices, serving as a guide for internal reflection and harmony with the external world. In yoga and meditation, the Heart Centre refers to the central body chakra, or energy point on the body. This spot is our centre of love for oneself and others, compassion, empathy and forgiveness. In Sanskrit this chakra is called Anahata, meaning 'infinite', 'unhurt' or 'boundless’. I bring these ideas into my landscape images to marry both our inner and outer worlds.

I intentionally draw from the Abstract Expressionists in these works to use similar signifiers like Mark Rothko’s framing of colour blocks and Barnett Newman’s ‘zip’ lines. Both artists were interested in the transcendent experience as well.

-Steven Nederveen, 2024

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Laurent Chéhère | Flying Houses
November 7 - 28, 2024
Bau-Xi Gallery | Dufferin, Main Floor Gallery
1384 Dufferin Street, Toronto
Opening Reception: Thursday, November 7th, 5-8 PM 

We are thrilled to announce that renowned French photographer Laurent Chéhère has joined Bau-Xi Gallery. Chéhère employs traditional photography and digital techniques to elevate architectural photography to a new level in his acclaimed Flying Houses series which will be exhibited at the gallery’s Toronto flagship location, 1384 Dufferin Street, this November.

Inspired by films such as Hayao Miyazaki’s Howl's Moving Castle and Albert Lamorisse’s The Red Balloon, Laurent Chehere’s Flying Houses series seeks to show the hidden beauty of the everyday. By using the cosmopolitan neighbourhoods of Paris as creative devices, Chehere isolates buildings from the urban context and releases them from the anonymity of the street to tell the life, dreams and hopes of their inhabitants. The artist resurrects buildings from the past, trying to rediscover the taste of childhood and innocence. These photomontages assembled like puzzles allow the curious observer to discover hidden details. From a distance these fragile homes appear carefree and dreamy, while up close, the story becomes more complex. The artist uses this distance to offer different points of view and warn against preconceived ideas. Influenced by the pioneering French photographers, Robert Doisneau and Eugène Atget, Chehere sees the resulting images as opportunities to tell stories of freedom, escape, drama, romanticism – or fantasy – while being firmly rooted in reality. Chéhère gives us some clues, yet these Flying Houses remain open to everyone’s interpretation and imagination.

“The first 'Flying Houses' were photographed by chance in the street and the photomontage was rudimentary of about ten elements. My method has evolved into a gigantic puzzle, I photograph a facade in several pieces to have a sharp rendering. My latest works use hundreds of photos, sometimes containing 1500 layers.

I start by drawing a shape, then, I either photograph or search in my very rich image bank for bits of facades, roofs, gutters, dirt, graffiti, chimneys, windows, window panes, window reflections, frost, statues, typography, rust, drips, shadows, antennas, satellite dishes, snow, traces of time. For the interiors, I build them like a filmmaker, or a theater set designer. I feed on books and other websites on the subject, such as curtains, tapestries, lights, furniture, and toys. The well-known characters are found on the internet, often the images being low resolution, I am forced to photograph a model and reconstruct their face to bring the character back to life. My works are never finished, I can add scenes years later… like a building that changes owners. I am not trying to go fast, my process requires time, the time to explore all possible ideas."

Laurent Chéhère is represented Internationally and has shown at Photo Basel (Switzerland), Paris Photo (France), and Pingyao Photo Festival (China). His work is also in the collections of the Tokyo Institute of Photography (Japan) and the New York Hudson River Museum (US), among others. His practice has been featured in numerous publications such as Time, The Guardian, Vogue, and Vanity Fair.

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Bratsa Bonifacho | No Sugar Added
November 7 - 28, 2024
Bau-Xi Gallery | Dufferin, Upper Floor Gallery
1384 Dufferin Street, Toronto
Opening Reception: Thursday, November 7th, 5-8 PM | ARTIST IN ATTENDANCE

This November, Bau-Xi Gallery | Dufferin is delighted to present No Sugar Added, the highly anticipated solo exhibition by internationally collected artist, Bratsa Bonifacho. In this series, the artist expands on his current interest in simplified grid structures and interrupted code-like symbology. Reflecting a desire to pare back frills and unnecessary adornments, the latest collection of paintings highlights the power of simplicity by way of a rigorous form and bold, emotive colour. The immediacy of the work seeks to emphasize the all-encompassing importance of the present moment.

Artist Statement:

"My choice of title 'No Sugar Added' refers to a paring back of frills and unnecessary adornments to reveal the power of simplicity. I have a relationship with each painting which is driven primarily by emotion. This collection picks up from the previous 'Celebration' series, focusing on simplified grid structure and interrupted code-like symbology. However, while the 'Celebration' series focused on an overall presence of white with bright colour accents, this collection features rich, deep colours in combinations which reflect mood and intuitive impulse, emphasizing the all-encompassing importance of the present moment." - Bratsa Bonifacho

Bratsa Bonifacho is an established artist based in Vancouver, Canada. His work is held in many private, corporate and permanent museum collections across five continents. Major collections held include the Canadian Embassy in Argentina, the Museum of Modern Art in Yugoslavia, the National Museum of Serbia and the Department of External Affairs in Ottawa. 

Internationally recognized for his deeply layered abstract paintings, an intense interest in technology, communication and cultural identity is at the forefront of his current artistic practice. Bonifacho imitates the effects of computer viruses and worms by scrambling letters and messages in his large-scale oil paintings. His work carries the elegance of programming code and indicates the deep layers of chaos and confusion caused by viruses, conflict, and crisis. 

Bonifacho joined Bau-Xi Gallery in 1998 and affiliate gallery, Foster/White Gallery in Seattle in 2004.

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Vicki Smith | Larger Than Life
November 2 - 14, 2024
3045 Granville Street, Vancouver
Opening Reception: Saturday November 2, 2-4pm


Bau-Xi Vancouver presents Larger Than Life, the highly anticipated solo exhibition from Toronto based artist Vicki Smith. Continuing with her years-long fascination with depicting female swimmers in intimate pool and lake settings, Smith gains inspiration from more expansive natural surroundings, placing her swimmers amongst rockier shores with more distant horizons. Smith's own meditation practice informs the energy of each image, imbuing the swimmers with a serene power and a gentle ease of thought and movement. Each image features the artist's adept skill with the brush in capturing the look and movement of water. 

Artist statement:

My adult life has been spent in a dense urban centre where nature presented itself in small ways: a front yard garden, a grassy boulevard, a city park, trees lining a busy street. The view was myopic. An occasional foray out of the city to a cottage or a drive in the country seemed pleasant but disconnected and slightly surreal.

That changed last year when I set up a studio beside a great body of water. I suddenly have a horizon line and an expansive sky. This vast new perspective is inviting its ever-changing colours and reflected light into my paintings, allowing my swimmers to engage in a respectful exchange with nature. 

-Vicki Smith, 2024

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Sheri Bakes | Aurora
October 5 - 17, 2024
3045 Granville Street, Vancouver
Opening Reception: Saturday October 5, 2-4pm | Artist in Attendance

Reflecting Bakes' recent viewing of the Northern Lights from her Vancouver Island home, these atmospheric paintings were inspired in part by elements of the science behind the auroras; from there, Bakes aimed to reach beyond the technical rendering of this natural phenomenon to focus on the feeling and emotion that the Lights convey. Bakes’ signature evocation of movement, energy and life-force connects all her paintings.


Artist Statement:

This new body of work explores the Northern Lights from a large Vancouver Island farm. There are a couple of cougar dens in the area where I live so I tend to avoid walking outside at night and in the early morning, but I wanted to see the auroras. 

To see the Northern Lights on the farm means walking through a forested area down a long gravel driveway in complete darkness to a clearing which offers an opening to the night sky. I missed the first night of lights because I was too afraid to take the long dark walk to the clearing. The following nights I mustered the courage and carried a portable high powered industrial light and made it out to the clearing to see the incredibly vibrant colours and dynamic movement of the Northern Lights over the farm. 

Back in the studio, I wondered how I could paint the Northern Lights from the internal feeling of having seen them. In reading about how the lights are created (the sun ejecting charged particles from its upper atmosphere creating the solar wind, and then that wind slamming into the earth’s upper atmosphere), I wanted to explore the colourful movement of charged particles, solar wind and atmosphere in motion.

-Sheri Bakes, 2024

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Kenneth Lochhead | Post-Painterly Abstractions
October 10 - November 28, 2024
Bau-Xi Gallery | Dufferin, Main Floor Gallery 
1384 Dufferin Street, Toronto
Reception: Saturday, October 26th, 2 - 4 PM 

Bau-Xi Gallery is honoured to present Post-Painterly Abstractions, an exhibition by distinguished Canadian painter Kenneth Lochhead (1926–2006). The exhibition showcases paintings created during the early 1960s, a pivotal period in Lochhead’s career as an abstract artist. During this time, Lochhead’s work expanded upon the Colour-Field painting movement, utilizing large areas of flat, solid color arranged in contemplative formations to foster a dialogue between the composition and the canvas.

Post-Painterly Abstractions will take place at the gallery's Toronto flagship location, 1384 Dufferin Street, from October 10 to November 28. A reception will be held on Saturday, October 26th, 2024 from 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm. 

Born in Ottawa in 1926, Kenneth Lochhead had a life-long love affair with painting, which continued until his death in 2006. Throughout his career, he expressed this passion in different ways, one of which was the monumental colour-field paintings of the 1960s and early 70s.

Lochhead studied art at Queen's University, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and the Barnes Foundation. He was appointed Director of the School of Art at the University of Saskatchewan in 1950, a position he held until 1964. In 1955, he initiated the Emma Lake Artists' Workshop, where he worked alongside Abstract Expressionist painters and renowned art critic Clement Greenberg. The inspiration and knowledge he gained from these workshops catalyzed his evolution into Colour-Field painting in 1962. These non-referential works reflect the New York aesthetic imparted by workshop leaders, including American artists Barnett Newman and Kenneth Noland. Lochhead was also a member of the Regina Five, made up of the most well-known Prairie-based painters (Arthur McKay, Douglas Morton, Ted Godwin, and Ronald Bloore) of the 1960s.

In 1964, Clement Greenberg selected Lochhead’s work for his curated exhibition Post-Painterly Abstraction, which also featured artists such as Helen Frankenthaler, Morris Louis, Ellsworth Kelly, Frank Stella, and Kenneth Noland. The show marked a new era of abstraction, characterized by linear forms, minimal detail, and bold colors.

Kenneth Lochhead passed away on July 15, 2006, but his profound influence on Canadian art endures through his paintings and many years of teaching. This impact is highlighted by the inclusion of his work in Art Toronto’s Public Exhibition Programme at this year’s fair. His remarkable pieces, “Blue Grey Field” and “Pitch Red,” will be on display throughout the event, taking place from October 24 to 27, 2024, at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

Lochhead's work is represented in many private collections, as well as in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Norman MacKenzie Art Gallery and other institutions across the country and abroad. He was awarded the Order of Canada in 1971 and the Governor General's Award in Visual Arts and Media Arts in 2006.

When reflecting on his career, Lochhead noted:

"As an eclectic painter I am in love with the nature of form and human innovation.  I have learned that plastic form, with its elements of colour, light, line and space, is the essence of coherent visual expression.  I suppose my painting is based primarily on the art of painting with the hope that it transcends to the art in painting.

I like to paint and look at paintings that reflect man's convictions, his grace, his sensuousness, his play, his delight, his creativeness, his coherence, his nobility, his spirit and his feeling.  I believe in the celebration of life.  Through painting I find some love and joy. It is all worthwhile." 

Quotation Credit: Joanne Lochhead

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Jamie Evrard | Time's Garden
September 14-28, 2024
Main Level | 3045 Granville Street, Vancouver
Opening Reception: Saturday September 14, 2-4pm
Artist in Attendance
Artist Talk & Tour Saturday September 14, 2:15 - 2:30pm



Bau-Xi Gallery is proud to present atmospheric and immersive new paintings on both canvas and paper by established Vancouver-based artist Jamie Evrard. In addition to Evrard's signature floral imagery, her exhibition also features five paintings of the enigmatic dresses from the garden art installation “Four Seasons” by BC based textile artist Deirdre Phillips.

 
Evrard’s floral fascination has spanned virtually her entire career, continually driven by flowers’ contrasting qualities of unapologetic boldness, fragility and ephemerality. Whether focusing on a single blossom or celebrating a chaotic profusion of garden blooms, Evrard adeptly captures their shapes, lines and personalities with light and soft yet decisive strokes. Embracing a slightly deeper and richer palette for her sensitive observances of Vancouver's gardens and ponds and the quiet curiosities they harbour, the artist imbues her lush subjects with an air of late summer – still in full and glorious bloom, with a hint of the autumnal change to come.

Jamie Evrard has had over 75 solo exhibitions across the US and Canada and has been featured in over 65 group exhibitions since 1970.


Artist Statement:


It’s a Tuesday morning in mid August and I’m supposed to be writing the dread Artist’s Statement. Instead, I’m out on the deck watching bees busy randomly attacking my sunflowers, flitting from one to the next and sometimes back again. They’re in a hurry, and they have no game plan other than to gather as much nectar and pollen as possible.

I can relate. All winter when the bees were asleep, I might as well have been too. I painted but the light was too dim, and I had trouble making decisions and believing in my choices. A few starts, lots of destruction and restarts.

Eventually spring arrived, then summer, bringing with them the light. Almost delirious with joy and, finally, energy, I culled most of the remaining winter paintings and returned to my studio. I started a big painting of artichoke plants, then painted over them in peonies, then roses, then abandoned the unconcluded work and started over. Though ideas grew as rapidly as my new garden plants, they often became unwieldy and obstinate.

As summer progressed and my deadline approached, I began to do the bee thing, buzzing around to seven or eight new canvases more or less at random, working on each one in turn. I felt I could now make the decisions I needed to coax the paintings in the right direction. The studio looked like a house of cards, or maybe the way an overly abundant garden must look to a bee. Where to go first and what to do next!

When the days are bright I work this way - everything at once, very intuitive, and with one painting feeding the next. Many of these paintings have long stories behind them, layers upon layers of ideas that once veered off track or onto tangents before I finally righted them. Cannibalizing a big painting with large brushes is, in fact, one of the great joys of painting.

Delphiniums continue to fascinate me, the way they bend and drape in beautiful rhythms when they are at their ripest. Excuses for layers and layers of blues and purples. And I love the way a painting of water can take off in a completely unexpected way.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I need to stop writing and go paint.

-Jamie Evrard, 2024

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Erin Armstrong | Paper Thin
September 12 - October 3, 2024
Bau-Xi Gallery | Dufferin, Main Floor Gallery 
1384 Dufferin Street, Toronto
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 14th, 2-5 PM | ARTIST IN ATTENDANCE

Bau-Xi Gallery | Dufferin is proud to present Paper Thin, the highly anticipated solo exhibition by Toronto-based artist, Erin Armstrong. In her latest collection, Armstrong delves into solitude, self-reflection, and the human condition, inspired by a transformative year marked by personal loss and self-examination. Armstrong masterfully uses her signature abstracted figures and dynamic brushwork to explore internal turmoil and universal experiences, inviting viewers to reflect on their own journeys.

Artist Statement:

"My upcoming exhibition ‘Paper Thin’ explores themes of solitude, self-reflection, and the human condition through the lens of a challenging and transformative year in my life. The unexpected loss of my father in January, coupled with health issues and the end of a significant relationship, led me to spend much of the year in introspection and isolation. This period of grief and self-examination compelled me to retreat into my own world, confronting the profound ways we experience loss and time.

The works in this exhibition feature singular figures set against flat, colour fields, juxtaposing the serene external with the chaotic internal. Through gestural brushwork, patterning, and pouring techniques, I sought to highlight the internal turmoil and swirling emotions that define our inner lives. The gradient of colours within the figures reflects the body's shifting states of fear, joy, and anger, while some figures, seen juggling multiple elements, symbolize the daily balancing act we all perform in our lives.

One figure in particular, with hands raised and mouth open, embodies a cry for answers to existential questions about life and death. The figures are spotlighted within semi-circles, placed on the center stage of their own existence, inviting viewers to engage with their expressions of confusion, tension, and melancholy.

These abstracted forms represent both no one and everyone, allowing viewers to project their own experiences and emotions onto the work. My intention is not to present a literal narrative but to capture the essence of a deeply personal journey and evoke the universal experience of seeking meaning. ‘Paper Thin’ aims to transcend the literal, offering a space for reflection on the complexities of our inner worlds and the shared human experience.” - Erin Armstrong, 2024 

Armstrong's work is collected internationally and has been exhibited extensively throughout Canada and the US as well as in Seoul, London, France, Spain,Australia, Scotland, Switzerland, and Sweden.

Her work has been featured in Vogue, Nylon Magazine, House and Home Magazine, Domino, ShopBop, Cultured Mag, Yahoo! News, Create Mag, and many others.

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