Vancouver’s best boutique art galleries
Away from the civic hype, the tourists and the photo-snappers, here are the display galleries that draw me in week after week. These local Vancouver galleries support Canadian art in all its embattled glory; they may be small, but their power over me is strong.
Bau-Xi Gallery
3045 Granville St, Vancouver, BC V6H 3J9Located on the cusp of Shaugnessy, this high-class gallery has white walls, lots of space, lots of quiet and lots of beauty. Bau-Xi is the oldest contemporary art gallery in Vancouver; it was opened in 1965 to fill the need for a showcase of Canadian painters on the West Coast. Walking among the landscapes, abstract works and large-print photos, you can hear muffled coughs, the squeak of shoes, and other pin-drop sounds that speak to the rapt silence of art appreciation.
Ian Tan Gallery Inc
2655 Granville St, Vancouver, BC V6H 3H2Another local gallery that specializes in contemporary art, Ian Tan has a strong regional bent, focusing predominantly on West Coast artists. Visitors should expect to see landscapes and nature scenes, filtered through modern sensibilities. This is a small and modest place from the outside, but on its walls hang much of Canada’s finest art.
Kurbatoff Art Gallery Ltd
2435 Granville St, Vancouver, BC V6H 3G5This is an outfit that reflects a strong curatorial stance. It’s shown a well-deserved loyalty to many Canadian artists, each with their own finely honed style. Gallery aficionados will recognize the work of Chris Langstroth, with its thick, knife-smeared paint rendered to give us a near-abstract view of humanity. Another Kurbatoff gallery artist is Andy Woolridge, who paints subjects in a smooth, ordered but distorting style, rendering them strange in their simplicity.
Marion Scott Gallery
2423 Granville St, Vancouver, BC V6H 3G5More contemporary Canadian art, but this time it’s strictly from the North. The focus here is on Inuit painting and sculpture, highlighting the work of artists from Cape Dorset, Baker Lake and other northern communities. The curated collection strikes a balance between traditional Inuit forms and modern experimentation; looking through the gallery you’ll see recognizable styles turned into something daring, new, mysterious.
Douglas Reynolds Gallery
2335 Granville St, Vancouver, BC V6H 3G4More Native art; this time the specialty is Northwest Coast work: sculpture, jewellery, pottery, masks and more. Most Vancouverites are somewhat familiar with B.C. First Nations art, but here it is in concentrated form, with animal iconography, myths carved into wood, totems of a still-thriving art culture. The work here is just beautiful.
