miłość
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CURRENTLY ON | Enemies to Lovers but Me to Myself by Sophie Vallance Cantor
Miłość is excited to present Sophie Vallance Cantor’s first solo exhibition with the gallery, ‘Enemies to Lovers, but Me to Myself’ opening on the 5th of February. In the show, Sophie’s oil paintings take on a new form of room dividers, illustrating experiences of autism and burnout – of recovery and grounding, of hiding and not wanting to be seen, of lashing out in pain, of boundaries and safety.
In their small London home studio, the paintings Sophie and her partner and fellow painter Douglas Cantor make often feel stacked on top of each other – the room dividers translate that feeling, becoming a sort of spatial collages. They conceal and protect, they form a boundary which echoes the artist’s experience of autism, which can often feel like looking in from the outside. Sophie’s paintings offer a refuge to exist in, and now a literal hiding place.
Sophie’s work has seen a change of pace in the recent years; from riding off into the sunsets, being on the lam and searching for another place of winning, she turns to more static compositions, to tender pensive portraits surrounded by softness, from nighttime to daytime depictions. The practice becomes one of solace rather than escapism. The tigers and leopards become portrayals of paralysing meltdowns, of snapping in anger. The painting of fur and leopard spots, as well as lace – inspired by doilies from their home and lace pieces by Dagobert Peche – mirrors the laborious process of healing and grieving.
In ‘Sick Woman Theory’, Johanna Hedva talks about the binary between the private and the public and how it positions within what we consider political. They say, ‘When you have a chronic illness, life is reduced to a relentless rationing of energy. … How do you throw a brick through the window of a bank if you can’t get out of bed?’. ‘Enemies to Lovers, but Me to Myself’ is an act of protest, an act of self-care and care for another, a diary of labour put into healing, of its hardships and wins.
Request the exhibition catalogue or press pack.
AVAILABLE NOW
A Rosa is a Rose
Douglas Cantor
£12.99