Victoria Cantons

Overview
Victoria Cantons

Victoria Cantons is an artist who happens to be a woman, transgender, and gay. As a trans woman she is keenly aware of limitations and stigmas, which leads her to question how much freedom we have and where our boundaries lie.

Cantons wants to understand as much as she can about what it means to be human. She believes that what we as individuals present to the world is multifaceted and not always visible; a continuous evolution in response to experience, and in relationship to each other. The human condition and questions of identity are central to her work. Cantons is interested in themes of power, identity, and male and female perceptions of each other. She says “These aspects connect us all and yet we are also unique individuals”.

 

A question that has always fascinated Cantons is how much freedom she has. Throughout her work, this question is explored through a multidisciplinary practice and worked through a filter of thinking about desire, time, loss, presence and absence. Cantons also explores the function of and her relationship with language; her practice attempts to express the embodied experience of living and tries to bridge the unknowable gap between what we see and what we say. Cantons says: "We are not just the clothed person we present to the world. We have many faces. We are defined by our response to experience and our relationship with each other and by language, and yet we are also unique individuals.” Whilst the work is an enquiry, its style comes about through process, emotion, and intuition. Quoting Rose Wylie, Cantons says that how the work looks is important, but meaning - politics, issues, story, and so on - is part of the structure of making a work, an act which is both personal and contemporary.

Works
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Guts Exhibitions 
Press
CV
Courtesy of Brynley Odu Davies
Courtesy of Brynley Odu Davies

B. 1969, London, UK

Education
2018 - 21 MFA Painting (Distinction), Slade School of Art, University College London
2017 - 18 Painters Studio Programme, Turps Art School, London 
2014 - 17 BA (Hons) Fine Art: Painting, Wimbledon College of Arts, University of the Arts London

 

Solo Exhibitions

2023 What Birds Plunge Through Is Not The Intimate Space, Guts Gallery, UK

2023 Nothing is Absolute, Flowers Gallery, London
2022 People Trust People Who Look Like Them, Flowers Gallery (East), London

2020 Champagne tastes on beer money, Guts Gallery, London

2018 Give Me Your Hand So That I May Not Be Alone, 48 Woodstock Road, London

Duo Exhibitions
2021 Tomorrow Will Be The Most Beautiful Day Of Your Life, with Xu Yang, Studio West, London
2021 You Can Tell Me, with Marla Bendini, Cuturi Gallery, Singapore

Group Exhibitions
2022 An Ode to Orlando, Marcelle Joseph Projects @ Pi Artworks, London
2021 Invisible Dragon, Cedric Bardawil @ Cromwell Place, London
2021 Small is Beautiful, Flowers Gallery, London
2021 ING Discerning Eye, The Mall Galleries, London
2021 LONDON GRADS NOW. 21, Saatchi Gallery, London
2021 Collection, Sixty Six London, London
2021 Yield, No 20 Arts, London (C)
2021 Incognito, Kovet.Art at Photo London Fair
2021 A New Art World, Guts Gallery, London
2021 Slade Postgraduate Fine Art Degree Show, Slade School of Art (UCL), London / Online
2021 Every Woman Biennial London: My love is Your Love, Copeland Gallery, London
2021 ANOTHER FIGURE, Silvis Contemporary, Online
2021 TRANSCENDENTAL, Cuturi Gallery, Singapore
2021 When Snowdrops Rise, MAPA Fine Art, The Hague / online
2021 New Futures Digital: Slade, Kovet.art Gallery, Online
2021 Redirecting, Tree Art Museum, Beijing
2020 PAPA RAGAZZE, Nicodim Gallery, Los Angeles
2020 the tales we tell ourselves, Purslane Gallery, online
2020 TwentyTwenty Women, Artistellar Gallery, online
2020 RA Summer (Winter) Show, Royal Academy of Art, London (C)
2020 A Rudimentary Education, Art Lacuna, London
2020 LONDON GRADS NOW., Saatchi Gallery, London
2020 Slade Graduate Fine Art Showcase, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London
2020 Begin Again, Guts Gallery, online show via instagram (C)
2020 Tomorrow: London (week 3 of 4), White Cube Gallery, London
2020 Trans-Identity: Body, Soul and Time, NoSpace Organisation, online show via instagram and NoSpace WeChat Official
2020 When Shit Hits the Fan, Guts Gallery, online show via instagram (C)
2019 Little Originals exhibition, Dock Street Studios, Dundee
2019 Annual Open Exhibition 2019, The South West Academy of Fine and Applied Arts @ Exeter Castle, Devon
2019 Graduate Interim Show, Slade School of Art (UCL), London
2019 Beautiful China, Beautiful World: Golden Era of China-UK, China Pictorial & UK-China Photography Association @ Central Hall Westminster, London and Charing Cross Library, London
2019 On the Mountain We Stay, supported by No Space in Zichuan district, Zibo city, Shandong province, China
2019 AIR Open 2019, AIR Gallery, Manchester
2019 RA Summer Show, Royal Academy of Art, London (C)
2019 Change, Hundred Years Gallery, London
2019 Micro, AIR Gallery, Manchester
2019 TROPE, Serf, Leeds
2019 LOVE, Slade School of Art (UCL), London
2019 Pulling Teeth, ASC Gallery, London

Residencies

2022 The Vannucci Artist Residency (VAR), Città della Pieve
2021 Silver Art Projects Digital Residency

Prizes
2021 Chadwell Award (shortlist)
2018 Felix Slade Scholarship

 

Selected Press

2023 The Guardian Newspaper, Culture, Art and Design section, The great women's art bulletin by Katy Hessel, “Why do we still define female artists as wives, friends and muses?”
2023 i-D Magazine, The exhibition about femininity, sexualisation, & crying on your birthday, online article 19 January 2023. Words by Millen Brown-Ewens.

2022 Dazed Digital: Ten women artists and designers on their love of Louise Bourgeois, 22nd February 2022, text by Emily Dinsdale. Available to read online here.
2022 Art On A Podcast / Art On A Postcard, Series 9: IWD Auction 2022: Victoria Cantons Podcast online, recorded 17th January with Mollie E Barnes of She Curates. Available on all podcast platforms.
2021 The Sunday Times, Culture section, 12 December 2021, “12 future stars of the art world you need to know about” by Waldemar Januszczak. Online and in print.
2021 Evening Standard: Cultural Capital Ep24, online feature 11th November 
2021 FAD magazine, online feature, 5 November 2021, LOVE, ART AND AFFIRMATIONS: AN INTERVIEW WITH ARTIST COUPLE VICTORIA CANTONS AND XU YANG By Bella Bonner-Evans. Read Here
2021 New York Times: T: The New York Times Style Magazine, 26th September 2021, pp 80-86, “The New Testament” written by Megan O’Grady. Also online.
2021 Financial Times: FT Weekend Festival, 4th September 2021, one of four artists chosen to represent the spirit and issues of the festival. 1200 Tote bags printed with the painting “A way to keep what’s vital from being lost or Sometimes all I think about is you” and given to visitors at at the entrance gate. Online info here.
2021 Elephant magazine, online feature 21 July 2021, Rising Stars: Elephant’s Pick of This Year’s Most Exciting Art School Graduates. Read Here
2021 Financial Times: How to Spend It (magazine): The Hope Issue, 1st May 2021, pp 48-49, guest edited by Jonathan Anderson. “Six artists reshaping our way of seeing”. Also online here.
2020 JW Anderson Artwork used in “The Secret of Life is in Art” - Oscar Wilde capsule collection Promotion. Available to view here
2020 The Sunday Times, Culture section, 13 September 2020, “Saatchi Saves the day, A lucky few graduates seize the moment” by Waldemar Januszczak. Online and in print.