Antonia Showering

Antonia Showering (b. 1991, London, United Kingdom) is British figurative painter who was born in London and lives and works in Somerset. Showering is known for her enigmatic, psychologically fraught paintings, with single or coupled subjects set against hazy mountain ranges or in scenes of aqueous, ambiguous domesticity. Showering’s figures seem to slide in and out of their surroundings, while specific elements—rolling hills, mountains or lakes in a landscape, or pieces of furniture—collapse into fluid pools of paint. These areas of abstraction, which seem on the verge of shifting into other forms, nod to the ever-shifting realities of subjectivity, memory, imagination and desire.

Using a rich palette of marigold, amber, carmine and plum, Showering works from abstraction back toward figuration by allowing a base layer of paint to pool in configurations dictated by gravity. She then paints back into the compositions that present themselves, in a process that recalls the automatic-drawing and chance-based systems of Surrealism. The result of numerous translucent washes of oil, which hover on the surface of her paper and linen supports, Showering’s bodies are nonetheless eerily fleshy and alive.

In 2018, a breakout year for the artist, Showering was the recipient of the New Contemporaries x SPACE Studio Bursary Award, The Great Women Artists Residency at Palazzo Monti, and the Henry Tonks Award.