2025 | MIKE BAYNE
GHOSTS, WATER TOWERS, BOWLING ALLEYS AND DAVE JOY
TORONTO
Oct 24 - Dec 20, 2025

Opening reception: Friday October 24, 2025, from 6pm to 8 pm.

In his 2023 solo exhibition at Blouin Division, Mike Bayne explored themes of time and mortality, documenting his life during an 18-month period. Bayne is a farmer, and along with the snapshot-sized works for which he is known, the show assembled objects collected from his fields, twine used over the course of a year on the farm, and records of card games he and his partner played in their spare time.

In this new exhibition, Bayne has included objects that act as units of time. But he is also thinking about the paintings themselves as a representation of ‘life lived’, pondering the human spirit they contain. This spirit he equates with dreams, hallucinations, religious visions and near-death experiences - all immersive activities that eclipse day-to-day life. In the following text, Bayne alludes to some of the themes and subjects in the show, conjuring a sense of this parallel reality:

“This past 48 years I had a fever dream that I was me but slightly different. I’d gone to the same elite private school and failed to fulfill the hopes of others but instead of a painter, I’d become a welder and run a boat storage business. I started breeding hunting dogs on the side. Instead of a son, I’d had two sons and two daughters. I’d still naively also decided to become a farmer, whatever that was. I’d go bankrupt during the 80’s recession and nearly lose the farm. We’d have to sell the Pilot painting we’d inherited. I was surrounded by towers of farm debris and tools.

In my dream my wife hadn’t almost died in her thirties. She never needed heart surgery. I hadn’t needed to hold her hand when the doctors told us she needed to have her heart valve replaced. Or that our son wouldn’t survive. She lived till she was in her sixties. And then she died of breast cancer. Instead of finding refuge from pain in alternative political perspectives, I joined a catholic bible group. I formed strong opinions about humility, friendship, informed perspectives, not letting your occupation define you.

I had wandered the dreamscape as this other person looking for a sign. Some direction. Was I a good person in this dream? Did I have to apologize for what I’d become or not become? For those I’d hurt, offended, cut off, been too hard on, forgotten. Could I be redeemed? Did I need redeeming? Was I wrong? Was I asking the right questions? The information offered in the dream was incomplete, fragmented, confusing, wayward. And besides, there wasn’t much time for reflection. Too much to do! Boats needed to be stored, vegetables harvested, trucks made more snow worthy, dogs trained, children raised, birthdays, illness, weddings, papers filed, bills paid.

I was limping. I didn’t move like I used to. I wanted to lie in the dark like a child listening to the sounds of my childhood home - footsteps, dishes, breathing. And remember the words that had abandoned me.

In the dream I wished that I could know what it meant to be this different person. That I could know the meaning of the dream - of dreams. That I could know the meaning of being you with a different name. Of being you with the same
name from a memory. Of falling asleep and waking, remembering and forgetting, living and dying in an endless cycle
and coming back to live again.

But it was a dream. It came and went. Evaporated when I awoke. Remembered only in fragments. Full of love, pain, failings, flaws, lights, colour, signs, messages received and lost, towers, blank skies, sadness, joy, fulfillment, failure, great embarrassment, regret, and memories - the wind on your skin, the cold crunch of gravel under your boots. And that seemed appropriate.” - Mike Bayne

Ghosts, Water Towers, Bowling Alleys and Dave Joy - Mike Bayne