Imbued in Chloe Wise’s art practice is a distinct and delightful derision and self-deprecating parody. Spanning diverse media such as painting, sculpture, video and installation, her work explores the multiple channels that lead to the construction of a Self. The tools of self-representation, publicity, fashion, commercial brands and all that combine to create one’s identity become subject to a potential teasing. They thus underline just how much humour and parody can generate an insightful and sharp critique of the world, and specifically the authority of the media in the digital paradigm. 

She paints her close friends, exploring themes of representation, identity and subject-object relationships. In doing so, Wise adds an element that supports her particular way of connecting her work to her private life. She thus evokes the porosity of the borders between the workplace and domesticity but also approaches the representation of friendship and privacy and the limitations imposed on this narrative by portraiture. We find the de-facto political aspect of the portraitist’s act, her sharing of her reality as a New York female artist who chooses her subjects – brought together first due to belonging to the same generation and cultural community and then based on a more intimate bond: their friendship with Chloe Wise and her act of painting.

Wise invites us to experience an abundance of rich food through the meticulously hand-painted casts that serve as the base for her sculptural practice. Reflecting a consumerist society in which the “forbidden fruit,” like so many guilty pleasures, is fetishized yet revered, these sculptures stand as an embodiment of temptation. Contrary to what they represent – perishable food, destined to decomposition – these strange assemblies, now frozen in sculpted plastic, toy with the presence and absence of unchangeability and perishability, fiction and reality.

Galerie Sebastien Bertrand

Brucennial

New York City

Chicago

Expo Chicago

Miami

Art Basel Miami

Genève

Kasmin Gallery

Almine Rech

Berlin

König Galerie

Paris

Marinaro

Peter Freeman, Inc.

David Zwirner

Half Gallery

Marianne Boesky

London

Los Angeles

Blum & Poe

Montréal

galerie division

Shanghai

James Fuentes

Gagosian

Mykonos

Dio Horia

Copenhagen

V1 Gallery

The Journal Gallery

Greene Exhibitions

Vav Gallery

Lacma

Ottawa

National Gallery of Canada

Zabludowicz Collection

Ontario

Art Gallery of Ontario

Atlanta

Atlanta Contemporary

Museum London

New Museum of Contemporary Art

Chloe Wise

Concordia University

Be able not to be able

I Have a Heart of Gold, It's Very Expensive

Hand Holding Brussels Sprout

Heart of glass of gold breaking

Under Where

Lament, Sing Wildly, Cast a Spell (Richie)

How Not to Cry Over Unspilled Milk (Ana)

Pluto with His Mother

You Can't Bring Ants to a Picnic

A Fantastic Ignorance