Victoria Cantons
Victoria Cantons
Some things you shouldn't get too good at or Where the sky and the big city meet (after Fragonard), 2020
Oil on linen
35 x 30 x 3.5 cm
About this Work
In Some things you shouldn't get too good at or Where the sky and the big city meet, the artist used Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s work, Young Girl Reading, (c.1769) as her starting point, using the image of the girl as an exploration of womanhood, full of potential restrictions symbolised by the collar and the bright coloured dress. Fragonard’s original painting denotes narratives on being seen, but not necessarily heard. These works are marked by the artist’s trans history, being an inescapable element of her life. She describes feeling like a spy amongst a male society she had been confined to because she was perceived to be “male” and “good looking”. Cantons does not consider her work as focusing primarily on transgender identity; rather, she uses it as additional knowledge to construct her understanding of self.
About Victoria Cantons
Victoria Cantons is a BA Painting graduate of Wimbledon College of Arts, UAL, (2017) and Turps Art School (2018). She received the Felix Slade Scholarship in 2018, and will complete her MFA in Painting at Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, in 2021. She previously studied Drama for the Stage and Screen at the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts (ALRA South). Cantons lives and works in London, and her work is held in private collections in Canada, China, Mexico, France, UK, USA, Singapore and Spain. Most recently, she initiated and curated the Slade Masters Showcase at Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London, in 2020, and went on to curate MA/MFA Slade graduates in London Grads Now. at Saatchi Gallery, London, in the same year.
Cantons is a cross-disciplinary artist producing work in various media including painting, photography, drawing, film and sculpture. Her work is informed by a multicultural upbringing and a background in photography and theatre, and has autobiographical, confessional and political undercurrents, which question the limitations and stigma on personal freedom and individuals’ boundaries. Her works explore ideas about time, history and reality; sociopolitical ideas and contemporary imagery are juxtaposed with reappropriated elements from the Old Masters, generating artworks that include a vandalisation of old painting techniques.
In these works, she aims to recontextualise the female gaze in historical paintings made by male artists. Cantons has stated that although she is transgender and a feminist, she does not categorise herself as a transgender or feminist artist. However, all of these elements filter into the development of her art, creating work that explores identity and representation.
Education
MFA Painting, Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, 2018 - 21
Painters Studio Programme, Turps Art School, London, 2017 - 18
BA (Hons) Fine Art: Painting, Wimbledon College of Arts, UAL, 2014 - 17
Summer Foundation Course, Slade School of Fine Art, UCL - 2013
Drama Studies, Academy of Live and Recorded Arts (ALRA South), London, 1995 - 97
Prizes and Awards
Felix Slade Scholarship, Slade School of Fine Art, UCL - 2018
Solo Exhibitions
It's 2020 FFS: Champagne tastes on beer money, Guts Gallery, London - 2020
Give Me Your Hand So That I May Not Be Alone, 48 Woodstock Road, London - 2018
Group Exhibitions
New Futures Digital: Slade, Kovet.art Gallery, London - 2021
PAPA RAGAZZE, Nicodim Gallery, Los Angeles - 2020
Life on Venus, The Tub, London/Online - 2020
the tales we tell ourselves, Purslane Gallery, London/Online - 2020
TwentyTwenty Women, Artistellar Gallery, London/Online - 2020
A Rudimentary Education, Art Lacuna, London - 2020
RA Summer (Winter) Show, Royal Academy of Art, London - 2020
LONDON GRADS NOW., Saatchi Gallery, London - 2020
RCA x Slade Graduate Fine Art Showcase, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London - 2020
Begin Again, Guts Gallery, London - 2020
Tomorrow: London, White Cube Gallery, London - 2020
Trans-Identity: Body, Soul and Time, NoSpace Organisation, online show via instagram & NoSpace WeChat Official - 2020
When Shit Hits the Fan, Guts Gallery, London - 2020
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
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, London - 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 - 2019
Turps Studio Painters, Paul Stolper, London - 2018
Set 24, The Art Academy, London – 2018
CHAIN, The Library of China University of Mining & Technology, Beijing - 2018
24th edition of Artist of the day: Day Nine, Flowers Gallery, London - 2018
Beijing Summer Exhibition 18, NL Gallery, Beijing- 2018
Picnic, Subsidiary Projects, London - 2018
Bring me my cloak, LVP House, London - 2017
Glutted: 7 Artists 24 Hours, 392 Grove Green Road, London Wimbledon College Undergraduate Summer Show, UAL, London - 2017
Landscapes of the Mind & Earth, Conference Centre, St Pancras Hospital, London - 2017
Currents of Identity, The Crypt Gallery, St Pancras Church, London - 2017
To Be Continued...Gallery of the College of Arts, Huabei University of Science & Technology Tangshan, China - 2017
109 Nails, Copeland Park, London - 2017
8th Loudest Whispers, Conference Centre, St Pancras Hospital, London - 2017
Exhibit Here Summer Exhibition, Menier Gallery, London - 2016
It's A Pleasure, 83 Greyhound Lane, London - 2016
Interrogating The Soul, SAFEHOUSE 1, London - 2015
Contemporary Art, Forme Trinity @ This Is Art Gallery, London - 2015
Summer Edit, Moreton Gallery, Moreton in Marsh, Gloucestershire - 2014
Zhe:[noun} Undefined, Soho Theatre, London 4th Loudest Whispers, Conference Centre, St Pancras Hospital, London - 2013
Curation
New Futures Digital: Slade, Kovet.art Gallery, London - 2021
LONDON GRADS NOW. ("Slade Room"), Saatchi Gallery, London - 2020
RCA x Slade Graduate Fine Art Showcase, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London - 2020
Trans-Identity: Body, Soul and Time (editor of show text; research advisor to show curator and text's author Ting Deng), group show online organised by NoSpace Organisation - 2020
100 Carat Diamond (co-curator), Artist: Yang Xu, Artworks Project Space, London - 2020
Landscapes of the Mind & Earth (co-curator), Group show, Conference Centre Gallery, St Pancras Hospital, London - 2017