Chloe Wise (b. 1990) is a Canadian artist based in New York City. Wise works in sculpture, drawing, video art, and oil painting and is known for her stylized and humorous approach to both still life and figurative painting that incorporate intimate depictions of food trends, agriculture, consumer culture, friends, and muses.
Foregrounding an interest in the history of portraiture, Wise examines the multiple channels that lead to the construction of a Self, paying particular attention to the interweaving of consumption and image making in contemporary culture. A big secret for a lot of people, made specifically for Whitechapel Gallery, is a striking portrait that is exemplary of Wise’s masterful and mature handling of paint to create psychological acute, charged, hyper-real images that are as much about the people as the settings they inhabit. Here, the subject’s face is overcome with light and shadow - a green glow overpowers a red background light, suggestive of a night-time party. Wise has captured her in a fleeting moment as light flickers. The acerbic green with the wash of red, combined with the aloof expression and sideward gaze suggest a latent uncertainty for the subject. And yet, as many of Wise’s subjects, she is the epitome of cool.
'I could weep about colour in a second. Colour hurts. You’re fighting all the time to capture this vision you’re having of a shadow or light effect, then, boom, it’s gone.'
—Chloe Wise
Selected solo exhibitions of Wise's work include Thank You For The Nice Fire, Almine Rech, New York (2021); And Everything Was True, HEART Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, Denmark (2019); Coast unclear seeks rained parade, Galerie Sébastien Bertrand, Geneva (2018); Of false beaches and butter money, Almine Rech, Paris (2017); and pissing, shmoozing and looking away, Galerie Division, Montreal and Division Gallery, Toronto (2015).