Bau-Xi Gallery | Dufferin is excited to present Mapping Nature, an explorative body of work by Canadian painter, Anne Griffiths. Using her unique and expressive visual language, Griffiths takes the viewer on a journey through the natural world, as she sees it. Walking the line between abstraction and representation, Griffiths captures the emotionality of those experiences, inviting the viewer to immerse themselves in its entirety. These works are catalogues of those journeys, seeking to provide inspiration for others to have their own.
There will be an opening reception on Thursday, March 5th, from 5:30 – 7:30 PM, with the artist in attendance at 1384 Dufferin Street.
ARTIST STATEMENT:
“With Mapping Nature, I sought to explore the experience of being immersed in a wild setting, navigating that visceral experience through careful observation and contemplation. The resulting body of work is intended to capture the sense of discovery that occurs when we allow ourselves to slow down and engage with the vibrancy and energy that nature has on offer.
As Tatum Dooley points out in her introduction to my new book ‘Mapping Nature’, my work is like a map to places I have been. Although they are not maps in a literal sense, the resulting forms and trace lines between areas of the painted surface are an echo of maps I was drawn in my youth. I loved to illustrate the stories I wrote by beginning each piece with a carefully crafted bird’s-eye-view drawing of the places the reader was about to enter. I felt inclined to articulate these tales through visual clues, as an aide to the reader, allowing them to follow along my journey to places populated by wise mountain dwellers and ocean creatures who guided those brave enough to follow. I have carried that sense of wonder into my practice, both consciously and subconsciously.
With that in mind, it was not until I read Tatum’s description of my work that I recalled these earlier creations in my life and realised that my paintings somehow do feel like maps to the places I have journeyed. I find it quite amazing that this link to my inner child has been a line of continuity through my entire career, both as an art director and an artist.
Ultimately, if my paintings can inspire not only an emotion reaction in the viewer, but an appreciation of nature which will be everlasting, then I will feel that my practice is reaching something worthwhile.” – Anne Griffiths
The following text is an excerpt from the introduction from Anne Griffiths first book, titled ‘Mapping Nature’, written by Tatum Dooley (founder of Art Forecast):
“I think of these paintings as maps of a memory.
The Italian writer Italo Calvino wrote about the narrative possibilities of a map—how traditional cartography leaves so much out, and the potential for another type of map to fill in the blanks of journeys through space. “The simplest form of geographical map is not the one that seems most natural to us today, namely the map representing the earth’s surface as though seen by an extra-terrestrial eye. The earliest need to fix places on a map was linked to travel, it was a reminder of the succession of stops, the outline of a journey,” opens the essay The Traveller and the Map by Calvino. Griffiths’ paintings fill in the gaps, mapping British Columbia via her journey through nature. She is charting non-linear depictions of space. The paintings become maps of everything that can’t be defined.
It is as if representing the world on a limited surface automatically relegated it to a microcosm, hinting at the idea of a larger world containing it. For this reason, a map is often situated on the border between two different kinds of geography, the geography of the part and that of the whole,” Calvino writes. Griffiths oscillates between the part and the whole, existing on the edge between representation and abstraction.
Looking at Griffiths’ paintings—slowly and carefully, letting the composition envelop me — I am invited into how Griffiths experiences nature. In turn, I learn to slow down and experience the world around me. These paintings replicate how memory works — some aspects, like colour and feeling, are specific, while others, the type of tree or weather conditions, are more vague and gestural. Griffiths translates experience into pigment.
Griffiths teaches us how to look at nature through art. They’re a map to understanding the world around us.”
ABOUT ANNE GRIFFITHS:
Anne Griffiths’ studio practice is motivated by the expression of landscape through intuitive knotting of colour and form.
Through gestural line work and an energetic colour palette, Griffiths creates spatial relationships and poetic interpretations of landscapes visited and then recalled in memory. She is interested in how we take a feeling of a place away with us in our memory, and how that energy can transform by playing with some level of abstraction in the rendering of a traditional landscape.
Anne Griffiths is a Canadian painter based in Victoria, British Columbia. She studied painting at Emily Carr University and received a diploma in design and illustration from Capilano University’s IDEA Program in 1986. Griffiths’ work has been shown in Canada, the UK and Europe in both solo and group exhibitions and has been placed in numerous private and corporate collections.
Most recently in 2025, her work was selected for group exhibitions in Paris, Berlin and London, and was exhibited in both group and solo exhibitions in Vancouver, London, Copenhagen and Turin.
