A Formula For How to Find Love
Victoria Cantons

23 January - 28 March 2026
Opening: 22 January 6-8PM

Mimosa House is delighted to announce that its first show of 2026 is by London-based artist Victoria Cantons. This will be her first solo presentation of new and existing work in the UK.

Predominantly known for her paintings, which have received wide critical acclaim, Victoria Cantons’ practice also uses a range of other media from moving image to neons to make sense of her relationship to the world around her as a queer woman from an ethnically diverse background. Navigating this complexity, Cantons’ work deals with issues of individual freedom, how beliefs are shaped and how identities are formed. She has stated “Art is a form of resistance, a way to reassess memory, to remember but also to reinvent, and within these boundaries the truth can be alternately distorted or clarified.” 

Cantons describes her work as an abstract self-portrait, shaped by both her personal history and the broader history of art and humanity. The influences that she draws on in her work encompass intimate experiences – such as her mother’s funeral – painters including Degas, Manet and Titian, classical  art, as well as philosophy, literature and mathematics. Her work is autobiographical and confessional with political undercurrents that address trans rights, class, discrimination and representation. 

A Formula for How to Find Love will comprise new text-based works that will mark a major evolution in Cantons’ practice, expanding her focus from questions of identity to more philosophical expression of emotion through language. The newly commissioned works for Mimosa House span paintings, moving image, sound and installation. These works draw on Cantons’ previous training as an actor to express and explore a range of emotional registers as well as the skills she has honed in developing her painterly practice, which moves between highly naturalistic figuration and expressive compositions.  For Cantons, the show’s title is an attempt to recuperate kindness and love in a time of increasing conflict and polarised socio-political and cultural opinion. 

British artist Victoria Cantons lives and works in London. She is the only child of European immigrants both of whom had experienced war in their home countries – her mother was from Madrid and a Catholic, while her father was French Algerian born to Russian Jewish and Basque parents. This upbringing has framed Cantons’ identity and her work’s subject matter: Cantons talks about having had memories of being different from the outset, and the ability to accept, declare and celebrate herself is an ongoing journey. 

On the subject of her identity Cantons has said: “I’m an artist, I'm a woman, I'm transgender, I'm labelled a trans (female, if I’m lucky) artist, but that trans-ness or any other aspect of my identity – the fact that I have a multi-national, cultural and religious background because of my parents and my upbringing – can't be tokenised.” 

Mimosa House is supported by:

For additional information, interview requests or press images please contact: 
Nicola Jeffs
nj@nicolajeffs.com 
07794 694 754