Wednesday 25 February 6:30–8pm
This event is free and open to all.
To book a free ticket click here
Join us at Mimosa House for an evening with Victoria Cantons exploring texts that have inspired her work and the language, poetry and writing rooted in Cantons’ practice and the creation of her solo show A FORMULA FOR HOW TO FIND LOVE.
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.”
This reading group explores the work of innovative writers, fostering learning through open discussion, connection and knowledge sharing. Selected extracts include; Phillip Guston’s ‘I Paint What I Want to See’ (2022); classicist Mary Beard’s ‘Women and Power: A Manifesto’ (2018); writer Leo Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace’ (1868); and some of the artist’s own poetry*
This event is free, however advanced booking is recommended.
Where possible, text extracts will be made available prior to the event.
*texts may be subject to change before the event.
BOOKING IS RECOMMENDED! as the event is likely to be very popular and the space is limited.
Mimosa House is wheelchair accessible.
Seating will be provided for this event.
If you have any questions regarding accessibility do not hestiate to contact us.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Victoria Cantons is a conceptual visual artist working in London, UK. Cantons’s artistic work is varied and is presented in multiple mediums including painting, neon, poetry, text, performance, photographs and videos, connecting and disconnecting psychological boundaries in the relationships we have with ourselves and others.
Her work is autobiographical and confessional with political undercurrents. Being raised in a multicultural and multi-religious home by European immigrant parents—her mother was from Spain and Catholic, and her father was French-Algerian, born to Russian Jewish and Basque parents—Cantons has memories of being different from the outset. Her ability to accept, declare and celebrate oneself is an ongoing journey for her, and has been littered with mental anguish, trauma, and scars. This influence can be seen in her works, with her use of text written into the surface of paintings and the language used to title works.
Cantons’ paintings explore the intersection abstraction and figuration. She makes highly naturalistic figurative canvases often making use of photographic images, and also makes expressionistic canvases that incorporate abstractions, expressive drips, and gestural, calligraphic line-work into lyrical ruminations. Using a large image archive, her paintings reference her family members, self portraits, flowers, and objects, and she often inscribes quoted text from a wide variety of sources. Cantons sometimes incorporates ideas of femininity and gender in her work, drawing on her experiences as a gay and transgender woman.
Cantons’s solo exhibitions include: ‘The Hour Before Sunrise,’ Tube Gallery, Spain (2025); ‘If Only, Time Were Ours To Spend, Again,’ Kunstverein Dresden, Germany (2023); ‘What Birds Plunge Through Is Not The Intimate Space,’ Guts Gallery, London, UK (2023); ‘Nothing is Absolute,’ Flowers Gallery, London, UK (2023); and ‘People Trust People Who Look Like Them,’ Flowers Gallery, London, UK (2022). Selected group exhibitions include: ‘There Are Other Skies,’ Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (SMoCA), Arizona, USA (2025); ‘Transfeminisms (Chapter III: Fragile Archives),’ Mimosa House, London (2024); ‘Present Tense,’ Hauser & Wirth, Somerset (2024); ‘The Cult of Beauty,’ Wellcome Collection, London, UK (2023); and ‘Self Portrait Prize 2023,’ The Atkinson Museum, Southport, UK (2023).