Kathryn Bemrose: Almost Knowing

Featuring recent paintings from 2025 alongside a selection of earlier work

Ochre Field, 2025, oil on canvas, 36 x 48 inches (91.44 x 121.92 cm). Image: Ashley Johnson

Kathryn Bemrose: Almost Knowing

September 6 – 14, 2025
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 6, 2 – 6pm
Closing Reception: Saturday, September 13, 2 – 6pm
Dupont Rail, Toronto (located in the Junction Triangle, West Toronto)

Artist Statement

I use abstracted visual verse, unlimited in time and interpretation, leaning towards Les Automatistes’ manner of physical, intuitive painting. Colour strokes colour, a line leads to a shape, which grows, then disappears only to return like an afterthought. The line pokes along, is swallowed then regurgitated to continue the game. These paintings grow out of each other and are products of a very visceral conversation with myself.

I close in on myself to paint, allowing the physical marks and colours to reveal and expose their own identity. I activate my subconscious to work with my conscious. Thus I become suspicious of painterly passages that are too comfortable or referential to previous work and I try to erase these areas. We must take chances to find originality in composition. I try to push my awareness when painting so as not to repeat the brush and arm movements that are familiar. The arm knows the movements and measurements that I have used before. You could repeat them in your sleep. I’ll only keep it in the composition if I don’t recognize the choreography of the paint.

My painting, King of Plans, continues this train of thought: a painting is a force of nature, evolving and twisting, like a living being. The imagery conveys a sense of psychological movement by virtue of the paint handling. I need to surprise myself.

Peace of Mind, 2024, oil on canvas, 24 x 36 inches (60.96 x 91.44 cm). Image: Ashley Johnson

About the Artist

Kathryn Bemrose was born in Paris, Ontario (1950). She developed an interest in art as a child and moved to Toronto where she trained at Ontario College of Art and Art’s Sake from 1973 to 1979.

She is known for her abstract colour compositions, painting visceral works with raised surfaces in oils. Her lifelong quest is to continually reinvent her expression. Artists as diverse as Francis Bacon and Richard Diebenkorn have influenced her work.

Bemrose has exhibited in many private and public galleries and her paintings are in numerous Canadian and international collections. Her work has been exhibited alongside the Painters Eleven as one of an upcoming younger generation. Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery presented a ten-year retrospective in 1999 and the Art Gallery of Mississauga mounted a large solo exhibition in 2002. Bemrose was featured with Ray Mead (Painters Eleven) in the exhibition Paint and Ink: The Tools of Kathryn Bemrose and Ray Mead (2002) at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa and the Frederick Horseman Varley Museum, Markham. In commemoration of Canada’s 150th birthday anniversary (2017), Harold Klunder, curated Bemrose as a Canadian woman painter in Intervention: 31 Women Painters at Galerie McClure, Montreal (2018). Her exhibitions have garnered many reviews over the span of her career.

Several galleries in Toronto have represented her, including Christopher Cutts Gallery, the DeLuca Gallery and Yumart Gallery until 2024 when the gallery closed. She continues her practice from her studio in Toronto, Ontario.

Contact the Artist:
kathryn.bemrose@gmail.com
kathrynbemrose.net
Instagram @kathrynbemrose

King of Plans, 2025, oil on canvas, 48 x 36 inches (121.92 x 91.44 cm). Image: Ashley Johnson

About Dupont Rail

Dupont Rail is a premium pop-up event space in Toronto that provides a gallery and hosting infrastructure for artists to exhibit their work.

Located in a commercial condo complex with on-site parking, Dupont Rail is a new event-space that’s easily transformed into a meeting room, photo/film set, retail pop-up, exhibition space, cinema theatre or private dining salon.

With approximately 900 ft2 of floor space, it has lots of wall-space to mount installations or artwork and lots of space to spread out. An automatic garage door opens easily to help alleviate Covid concerns.

The space is available for daily, weekly and monthly rentals. For more compete pricing information, please contact us at info@dupontrail.ca

Dupont Rail
1444 Dupont Street, Unit 10
Toronto, ON M6P 4H3
dupontrail.ca
info@dupontrail.ca
416-400-1888

Hours: Thursday – Saturday, 1 – 5pm

Accessibility: Dupont Rail is fully accessible