Exhibitions

Darlene Cole | Paradise

Darlene Cole | Paradise
December 5 - 23, 2024
Bau-Xi Gallery | Dufferin, Main Floor Gallery
1384 Dufferin Street, Toronto
Opening Reception: Saturday, December 7th, 2024 , 2-5 PM | ARTIST IN ATTENDANCE

Bau-Xi Gallery | Dufferin is pleased to present Paradise, the highly anticipated solo exhibition by internationally collected artist, Darlene Cole. When one observes the canvases of Darlene Cole, a Brooklin-based painter, they immediately recognize the soulful and nuanced narrative that stands before them. The artist carefully constructs the scene, utilizing not only colour and form, but a distinct watercolour-like application of oil paint to create feelings of nostalgia and wonderment.

Cole seeks to place thoughts and emotions at the forefront, almost at odds with one another - love and loss, playful and melancholic, known and the unknown - in order to evoke a deep and personal reflection from the viewer. These dichotomic creations are skillfully navigated by the artist, with the resulting piece becoming harmonious through deft brushwork and intricate details.

The artist states:

"In this body of work I see each painting as a sliver of Paradise as though each canvas is being viewed through a keyhole. I invite the viewer beyond the visual; a diorama of lucid dreams and emotional intimacy woven with themes of love, resiliency, drama, and sensitivity.

With the gesture of each brushstroke, the oil paint is layered with the complexity of nature in mind that reverberates my palette into dream-like moments. Alongside terror and darkness in the world, my hope is to illuminate sparks of light in a world of Paradise." - Darlene Cole

Cole's work is extensively collected across Canada and internationally. Notable public collections include The Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Tom Thomson Art Gallery, the K.F. Preueter Collection of Canadian Art, Royal Bank of Canada, CIBC, OCAD University, Fairmont Hotels (Toronto, Montreal, Banff), and Manulife Financial.

VIEW THE FULL COLLECTION

Shi Le | Landscape - A Select View 2

Shi Le | Landscape - A Select View 2
December 5 - 23, 2024
Bau-Xi Gallery | Dufferin, Upper Floor Gallery
1384 Dufferin Street, Toronto
Opening Reception: Saturday, December 7th, 2024 , 2-5 PM | ARTIST IN ATTENDANCE

Bau-Xi Gallery | Dufferin is thrilled to present Landscape – A Select View 2, the highly anticipated solo exhibition by Canadian landscape artist, Shi Le. For over four decades, Shi Le has sought to capture the world that surrounds him through a holistic approach. From his peaceful walks along the river edge, to the contemplative moments observing the movement of nature, Shi Le channels those experiences onto the canvas via a filtering and colouring process.

When asked to reflect on this recent body of work, the artist states:

"As the world slowly came back to life over the last few years, I too have awakened in some way. I’ve taken many strolls through the Ontario countryside, watching the landscape change with the seasons. Each piece is a reflection of what I see—rocks, trees, lakes, and light, all blending together, shifting in ways that feel alive, that make me feel energetic and excited. The work gives me peace and purpose, something to hold onto as I continue to create and pursue in art.

I want my paintings to offer that same peace to others, a chance to slow down and find stillness in a noisy world. The details in my work, the vibrant colors, are meant to show how nature and life are always changing, but always beautiful, even during the coldest winters. My work offers a meditation, a chance to breathe, and a space for quiet." - Shi Le

With this in mind, we begin to see how the artist's feelings run deep within and form the experience for the viewer, one of reflection and allowing a quiet moment amongst the hustle and bustle of our daily pursuits.

Shi Le received his Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Sichuan Fine Arts in China and a Master of Fine Arts at the University of Waterloo. The artists has also taught at various institutions including Lakehead University, University of Waterloo and the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute.

VIEW THE FULL COLLECTION

Holiday | Gallery Artists
3045 Granville Street, Vancouver
December 7-31, 2024
Opening Reception Saturday, December 7 2-4pm

Bau-Xi Vancouver is pleased to present our annual holiday group exhibition, featuring stunning new paintings and photography in the spirit of the season. Please join us for refreshments at the opening reception on Saturday, December 7 from 2-4pm.

The exhibition includes works by artists including Bratsa Bonifacho, Tom Burrows, Cori Creed, Jamie Evrard, Kim Keever, Nicole Katsuras, Kathryn MacNaughton, Casey McGlynn, Robert Marchessault, Michelle Nguyen and more.

VIEW THE FULL COLLECTION

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

VIEW THE FULL COLLECTION

Vicky Christou | Soft Gravity
November 16 - 30, 2024
3045 Granville Street, Vancouver
Upper Gallery
Opening Reception: Saturday November 16, 2-4pm
Artist In Attendance

Bau-Xi Vancouver proudly presents Soft Gravity, the new solo exhibition from Vancouver based abstract painter Vicky Christou. Meditation and breathwork are an intrinsic aspect of her signature extruded-paint technique, with every extruded line of paint being executed in a single exhaled breath. Her works are inspired by quiet observations of nature and suggest a sublime, universal order.

Artist Statement:

My processes are the driving content of my work; my continued exploration of paint materiality is encoded with personal narratives and the awareness of gendered histories. My paintings simultaneously reference craft and abstraction.

For my new exhibition entitled “Soft Gravity” I was inspired by the solace found in walks along local shorelines and forest trails. During these walks I felt a deep connection with and appreciation of nature, benefiting from the restorative powers in its seasonal changes of colours and patterns. The title “Soft Gravity” refers to a feeling of buoyancy, which I interpret as an impermanent and atmospheric quality of rising. I observed the early morning fog lifting over the ocean and pollen particles being swept up by the wind - I was inspired to capture the sensations of whirling, floating and the denial of gravity that the fog and wind made appear so effortless.

Though I still begin with the foundational bones of the structured grid, these new works allow for the grid to become organic, no longer an enclosed structure – it opens up to weightlessness, free movement, and new possibilities.

-Vicky Christou, 2024

VIEW THE FULL COLLECTION

Laurent Chéhère | Flying Houses

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.

VIEW THE FULL COLLECTION

Bratsa Bonifacho | No Sugar Added

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.

VIEW THE COLLECTION

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

VIEW THE FULL COLLECTION

Eric Louie | Seeing Through

Eric Louie | Seeing Through
October 19 - 31, 2024
3045 Granville Street, Vancouver
Opening Reception: Saturday October 19, 2-4pm
Artist in Attendance

Bau-Xi Vancouver proudly presents Seeing Through, the new solo exhibition of works from Vancouver based artist Eric Louie.

Louie's signature undulating, foil-like forms are digitally inspired yet entirely analog, painted in oil on canvas with no actual metallic paint. The works themselves are precise and cerebral, and possess an inherent flow; the new compositions lead the eye slowly around the canvas, meandering through memory and time and encouraging a less harried approach to thought and to life.

Artist Statement:

A road trip of the mind, trying to capture moments or encounters along that imagined journey within each painting.

Almost living and yet completely inanimate at the same time, those subjects in each work take the viewer to a different portal or place in time.

Somewhat symbolic and operating in that pseudo-digital realm, where painting attempts to transcribe and find some relationship with that digital world we all live in part-time.

-Eric Louie, 2024

VIEW THE FULL COLLECTION

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

VIEW THE FULL COLLECTION

Barbara Cole | Shadow Dancing

Barbara Cole | Shadow Dancing
October 10 - 31, 2024
Bau-Xi Gallery | Dufferin, Main Floor Gallery
1384 Dufferin Street, Toronto
Artist Talk and Q & A: Saturday, October 19th,11 AM - 12:30 PM | ARTIST TALK BEGINS AT 11:30 AM

This October, Bau-Xi Gallery | Dufferin is pleased to present Shadow Dancing by award-winning Canadian photographer, Barbara Cole. This feature showcases select works that embody the artist’s exploration of timelessness by utilizing the earliest form of photography: wet collodion. The artist captures moments of self-reflection, challenging the viewer to look beyond the sublime and search for a deeper meaning within.

Join us on Saturday, October 19th from 11:00 am - 12:30 pm at 1384 Dufferin Street for an artist talk and Q & A, hosted by Kyle Matuzewiski, the Co-Director of Bau-Xi Gallery. Guests will hear from Barbara Cole about her Shadow Dancing series and learn about the artist’s dynamic career. The artist talk begins at 11:30 am and light refreshments will be served.

Barbara Cole’s deep appreciation for historical photographic processes led her to create Shadow Dancing, a series that she began in 2011, in which she uses a 150-year-old technique: wet collodion.

“Embracing your shadow means accepting every part of yourself—the light and the dark. It's about recognizing your fears, flaws, and insecurities and integrating them into your whole being. This series depicts various scenes of models in motion, gliding through the picture, creating a beautiful, three-dimensional dance between light and shadow.” – Barbara Cole

The artist’s preference for using one of the very first forms of photography allowed Cole to slow down the overall process of creating a single photograph and spend significantly longer in the dark room. Cole almost shortens the distance between the past and the present by taking a primitive form of the photographic process and modernizing it by adding colour to the tintype, creating mysterious pictures of beige, gray and brown shades.

Throughout her career, Cole has worked internationally on commercial projects and has created several large-scale commissions, including installations for the atrium at the M. Lau Breast Cancer Centre in Toronto’s Princess Margaret Hospital. The artist’s work is included in private and corporate collections across Canada and internationally, including but not limited to the Bisha Hotel and Residences, Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation, Museum of Fine Arts Houston Texas, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, and Polaroid Corporation USA. She has also exhibited at the Canadian Embassies in Tokyo and Washington, D.C.

Cole has won prestigious awards such as the Grand Prize at the Festival International de la Photographie de Mode in Cannes, third prize at the International Photography Awards in New York, 2023 Canada Arts Council Research and Creation Grant, Commitment to Service Award (Mental Health Advocacy) from Give an Hour, and Swim Drink Fish Ambassador supporting clean water initiatives in Toronto. In 2012, the acclaimed documentary series Snapshot: The Art of Photography II featured an episode devoted exclusively to Cole’s photographic practice.

Beyond her professional accomplishments, Cole is a passionate mental health advocate. The artist uses her practice as a platform to raise awareness about the stigma surrounding mental health and spotlight the strength and resilience of women.

VIEW THE FULL COLLECTION

Kenneth Lochhead | Post-Painterly Abstractions

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

VIEW THE COLLECTION

335 results

Exhibitions

Darlene Cole | Paradise

Shi Le | Landscape - A Select View 2

HOLIDAY | GALLERY ARTISTS

Steven Nederveen | Heart Centre

Vicky Christou | Soft Gravity

Laurent Chéhère | Flying Houses

Bratsa Bonifacho | No Sugar Added

Vicki Smith | Larger Than Life

Eric Louie | Seeing Through

Sheri Bakes | Aurora

Barbara Cole | Shadow Dancing

Kenneth Lochhead | Post-Painterly Abstractions

Visit our affiliate galleries

Your Order