Chloe Wise has not set foot in the city where she was born in 1990 for more than five years. And it will have been enough story Instagram so that the prodigal son, who masters the art of social networks as few know how to do, officially announces his visit to the metropolis. “The last time I was there, for my exhibition Cats not fighting is a horrible sound as well, Trump had just won the US presidential election, she said upfront. Everyone was depressed, angry and shocked. »
The millennium that gallery owners are vying for on both sides of the Atlantic is here this time to present In Loveliness of Perfect Deeds at the Blouin Division gallery. Based in New York since the end of her studies in fine arts at Concordia in 2013, Chloe Wise has enjoyed dazzling, almost exponential success. Earlier this year, one of his paintings was even shown at the prestigious LACMA in Los Angeles. In 2014, his collection of Breadbagsamong others the Bagel No.5 in reference to Chanel, had also allowed him to enter the hermetic universe of fashion, which had propelled his artistic career abroad.
Upon his return to Montreal, the United States is just as shaken as in the fall of 2016. Access to abortion is today threatened by the Supreme Court. “Female, trans and minority bodies are exposed to the ideology of men in power, and the issue of abortion is a long-standing battle. This is not the specific subject of my work, but we are necessarily all concerned”, explains the one who misses nothing.
If bodies free in their posture and their expression are dispersed in her hyperrealist work, Chloe Wise emphasizes however that it is not a question of a setting in opposition with the news, but rather of a simultaneity, a duality. “Despite the difficult times, we choose our battle somewhere between the public and the intimate, society and the individual. Neither political nor militant, her creations represent people, most often her friends, and banalities at a specific moment, “all in conscience and casually”, to better question and negotiate the world around her.
Crossed looks
Usually inspired by women and non-binary people, Chloe Wise stands at the antipodes of voyeurism. “I only represent them if I have their consent. They are not my subjects, but are my equals with their autonomy and their identity. » Portraits of loved ones appear in In Loveliness of Perfect Deeds like a year book and give the impression that we are walking in a crowded street. “We see everyone and no one at the same time. I like the effect that the group provides, the relationship between oneself and the other”, she continues.
Because her painting is not a long thought-out act, but a “natural impulse”, the portraits made by Chloe Wise, and in particular those in the exhibition, overflow with energy and promptness, sensitivity and instinct. “I love approximation and immediacy, and mistakes are part of that. When they stay, it shows the individuality of the human hand that held the brush, she says. My paintings do not seek to hide the way they were made, their materials. »
In Loveliness of Perfect Deeds is also an invitation to reinterpret what shapes life in society. “I thought a lot about smiling as a two-way flatness,” says Chloe Wise. For her, interactions, of which the smile is a part, are indeed a code of conduct to which we adhere implicitly and which she has chosen to burst through repetition, until it becomes “a meaningless signifier”. His installation designed with 120 doormats, and which takes the form of a sunken living room, also works according to this scheme. “It’s a welcome that means absolutely everything, except welcome. »
The seriality of the faces and doormats invites the viewer to a place perceived, wrongly, as comfortable and relaxing. “All these things that we think are normal are actually there to circumvent abjection, chaos and otherness. We almost never question this system”, regrets the artist, who therefore has fun destabilizing the established order thanks to a sarcastic reputation, which his few hundred thousand Instagram subscribers know him.
Persona and News Feed
” Social networks ? I don’t know what you’re talking about! responds a Chloe Wise, more ironic than ever when it comes time to discuss her online presence. This inevitable and recurring question makes the artist impatient. “The more you repeat a platitude, the more it loses its meaning. It’s the epitome of social media, she points out. I post pictures of my cats and my boards, and then I log out. By dint of using social networks, we have, in turn, diverted them from their original meaning. »
That some think her work is part of an aesthetic imagined for social networks, it shows how these have become the norm, she believes. “That says a lot about our understanding of technologies. The fact that my portraits are read in this way has nothing to do with an artistic choice. It’s up to the viewer,” says Chloe Wise, who believes reframing is the language of painting specific to 2022.
Her good use of complementary colors, “a simple practice and undeniably the strong point of millennials”, could also explain the “social network” aspect of Chloe Wise’s work. “It’s annoying how traditional my paintings are! There is no illusion, no algorithm…” finally underlines the artist, with self-mockery.
The opening of the exhibition In Loveliness of Perfect Deeds by Chloe Wise will take place on May 28 at the Blouin Division gallery.