Five Toronto art exhibitions worth seeing this September

September is a busy month in Toronto's art world—collectors are returning to the city after spending the summer away—and galleries across the city are mounting high-profile shows worth the visit.

Tangles runs September 10 to October 17 at United Contemporary (129 Tecumseth St.). Sculptor and photographer Michelle Bui arranges pedestrian objects from grocery, hardware and craft stores in temporary assemblages, capturing them on film before disassembly. In this exhibition, tiny scraps of tarp, flower petals and plastic netting coalesce to create still lifes of oceanic debris that blur the line between beauty and destruction. The show is in partnership with Montreal's McBride Contemporain gallery.

Street Portraits, on view September 12 to October 17 at Stephen Bulger Gallery (1356 Dundas St. W.), is a major exhibition of American photographer Dawoud Bey's large-scale works from 1989 and 1990. Bey, best known for his vivid portraits of people in marginalized communities, captures each subject looking sombrely at the camera. A concurrent exhibition of Bey's work is on view at the AGO until next July—an unusual occurrence that speaks to the breadth of his appeal.

Left at Etruria opens September 10 to October 17 at Clint Roenisch Gallery (190 St. Helens Ave.). Multidisciplinary artist Heather Goodchild examines colour as its own form of storytelling through paintings, textiles and ceramics. Her carefully rendered landscapes explore relationships between humans and the natural world, featuring lone figures walking through fields and house lights contrasting night skies. The exhibition's title references both ancient Etruria, a region in central Italy, and Etruria Works, a British ceramics factory founded by Josiah Wedgwood (Charles Darwin's grandfather) in 1769.

Petrichor opens September 18 to October 31 at Daniel Faria Gallery (188 St. Helens Ave.). Sculptor Jennifer Rose Sciarrino creates works from alabaster, stone, metal and glass that resemble living organisms—seeds, spores, cells, pollen, eggs. Her forms are intriguingly familiar yet jarringly uncanny, and inspired by writers such as Ursula K. Le Guin and Donna Jeanne Haraway, they evoke humans, plants and animals caring for one another in symbiotic relationships.

The Conservatory opens September 26 at Gallery 1888 (225 Sterling Rd.). Tokyo-born artist Naomi Okubo collages images from magazines and interior design books in Photoshop to create layered, surreal depictions of everyday domesticity. Her painstakingly intricate paintings are filled with ornate detail.