Exhibitions

Janna Watson | Skywriting
February 4-18, 2023
3045 Granville Street, Vancouver
Opening Reception Saturday, February 4, 2-4pm*
*artist will not be in attendance as planned due to unforseen circumstances

Toronto-based abstract artist Janna Watson has applied her signature elegant-yet-playful, gestural style to an anticipated new series.

Inspired by clouds, the sky, and the Daoist philosophy of Wu Wei, or “effortless action,” Watson explains how she embraces this axiom: “I meditate when I paint and aim to shut out the terrestrial and the pedestrian. I strive to become an equal player of each pigment.”

Regarding her show title Skywriting: “The sky is my muse. It is no-place and all-places, and as a subject matter, it is my connective portal to nature. Unlike landscape, which references the topography of a specific place, the sky is a numinous entity that draws us toward a preeminent power.”

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Holiday | New Works by Gallery Artists
December 3-17, 2022 
3045 Granville Street, Vancouver
Main Gallery

Bau-Xi Vancouver is pleased to present our annual holiday group exhibition, featuring beautiful new painting and photography in the spirit of the season.

The exhibition includes works by artists including David Alexander, Vicky Christou, Cori Creed, Jamie Evrard, Anne Griffiths, Nicole Katsuras, Gavin Lynch, Andre Petterson and more. 

Steven Nederveen | The Ocean In Us
3045 Granville Street, Vancouver
November 19-30, 2022

Steven Nederveen’s work deals with the passage of time, a theme stemming from his own practice of meditation. Moments of peaceful clarity lead the artist to draw connections between our natural environment and aspects of spirituality through an artistic process that combines painting and photography. In this new exhibition, he focuses on the drama of crashing waves, paying homage to the historic seascape paintings of shipwrecks by old Dutch masters, referencing dark black skies, turbulent waters and fine detail.

Artist statement:

As a waterman and the son of a sailor, I’ve spent a lot of time on the waters of the west coast. I know these waters, and yet I can never really know them. The ocean is an endless variety of movement, light and feeling. We can see ourselves in its vastness and depths, its calm and its torrents. Water reflects back to us our inner worlds and emotions. 

In my latest depictions of the sea, I have re-cast the ocean as subject and zoomed in on one small section of turbulent water, using contemporary techniques to distill ocean crashes into gesture and form so that we can feel the full impact and chaos of the untamed sea. I use a golden glow to represent the human spirit, depicting it as an extension of nature itself, inseparable from the beautiful chaos of these waves. The vastness of the water reflects the vastness of ourselves - these pieces are both inner and outer landscape. 

-Steven Nederveen 2022 

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Michelle Nguyen | Horror Vacui

November 5-16, 2022
3045 Granville Street, Vancouver
Opening Reception: Saturday November 5, 2-4pm - Artist in attendance

Michelle Nguyen uses oil, pastel, and vivid colours to illustrate worlds dense with mythology, symbolism, and narrative. In her current work, Nguyen looks to encourage viewers to think and speak openly about human mortality and acknowledge death as an inevitable reality - she believes that contemporary Western society has created a culture of death denial and fear that is detrimental to the emotional and spiritual well being of the individual and the communities to which they belong. She infuses her images with important commentary on inherited trauma and ancestral grief through her lens as part of a Vietnamese Canadian family.

In her new show, Nguyen explores themes of mortality through the Victorian aesthetic horror vacui (Latin for ‘fear of empty space’) as a way to talk about the unknowns of the future and the afterlife.

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Eric Louie | Hide and Seek
October 1-13, 2022
Main Gallery
3045 Granville Street, Vancouver

The reworking of canvases has always been a common, natural, and even essential element of an artist’s practice. Bau-Xi Gallery presents an extraordinary collection composed entirely of newly reworked abstract paintings by Vancouver artist Eric Louie. In his signature graphic, sculptural style, Eric rethinks his organic abstract forms with new colour, line and balance, fine-tuned to reflect the process and accumulation of learning along life’s journey. The new paintings gain fortitude from the energy of the originals, which lie dormant under the surface for a later discovery.

Artist statement:

I find a lot of joy in reinventing my older pieces. This rebirth or salvation - changing something old into something new - has many rewards and moments of discovery. Through a process of transcription via the iPad, I can explore new avenues for forms within the works, leading to surprisingly different outcomes than I had originally imagined. This cycle of technology informing my painting has become inescapable and is reflective of our use of technology in life in general.
 
As in past bodies of work, the paintings elicit comfort through suggestions of the familiar, while remaining subjective in their virtual spaces. They reference landscapes or connote flora or fauna-like imagery, sometimes even figural, without being overt. My paintings allow one to relate to their content, while at the same time posing questions as to its significance. The show title ‘Hide and Seek’ reflects the idea that paintings are in constant flux, and that the artist tames them while they are in the studio. They undergo the processes of expansion and contraction of information, from maximalism to minimalism in some cases... The works speak to a futuristic aesthetic, bending metallic gradients and bands of light over leaf-like formations. In them, I see a sense of strength and perhaps utopian beauty found in idealized shapes and compositions.   – Eric Louie 2022

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Nicole Katsuras | Summer Hours
3045 Granville Street, Vancouver
June 4-16, 2022

This new body of abstract work by Nicole Katsuras is a reflection on learning to live more lightly, freely and joyfully, while looking forward to future adventures, big and small. Through her experimentation with paint, Nicole's works have evolved into highly textured, full-spectrum surfaces that explore femininity and reference cartography, Impressionism, Abstract Expressionism, and Ukiyo-e. 

Artist statement:

The title ‘Summer Hours’ sparks an emotional response to contemporary life, evoking times or moments of celebration from personal experiences, as well as memories of carefree and joyful times.  There is also a universal anticipation that accompanies the words “summer hours” – they suggest a period that is an accepted ‘break’.  Summer hours are synonymous with beaches, parks, backyards, road trips and adventured-to, faraway exotic lands. It is in these moments of unplugging, recharging and reconnecting with nature that we increase our appreciation for our personal paths and our loved ones.  

My process involves pushing and dragging the paint around on the canvas, and allowing it to dry into satisfying, detailed globs and blobs of stratified, marbled colours on the surface. These suggest landscapes, tapestries and floral elements in thick impasto.

-Nicole Katsuras
2022

Janna Watson | Blue Moon, Blue Ocean
3045 Granville Street, Vancouver
January 15 - 29, 2022

Janna Watson delves into the depths of space above and ocean below with a new series of lively and sophisticated abstract compositions. Clusters of purposefully placed gestural strokes in elegant earthy and pearly tones float against backgrounds of velvety navy, suggestive of the enveloping embrace of primordial darkness. Balanced by Janna’s signature poetic titles, these works are suffused with equal parts thoughtful introspection and lightness of being.

Artist Statement:

This series illustrates the dark blues that appear to float in deep, watery, starry space - the space where I’d rather be, in the sky or in the ocean. The ocean is attracted to the moon, and we are all caught somewhere in between that “pull".

When floating, there’s a movement felt, but not seen.

A silent pull.

Things exchanged.

Feelings that can’t or don’t have words. 

Steven Nederveen | Home
3045 Granville Street, Vancouver
November 20 - December 2, 2021

Steven Nederveen reframes the grandeur of the Canadian landscape to reflect the essence and lifeforce of Home. By interweaving the mediums of photography and painting, Nederveen conjures a magical realism that brings forth new perspectives on the landscape genre.

Artist’s Exhibition Statement:

During the period of covid in which travel was difficult and we were all stuck at home, I got to thinking what “home” is to me. Home, it turns out, is many things - friends, family, connection, inner peace, playing with my kids. I decided to focus on home as an internal place of stillness and quietude, a place of reflection and contemplation. I have imbued images of island coastlines with these traits. I spent a lot of time as a kid sailing with my family around these islands and have felt the deep sense of peace that speaks through the water and the land. Small islands, distant shores, the open horizon - these take on the feeling of sacred ground, of places to protect. Home is just that: a cherished space with its own life and vitality, each one different and unique.