News

Antonia Showering Joins Timothy Taylor

29 November 2021

Timothy Taylor is pleased to announce the sole representation of British artist Antonia Showering, who joins a roster of post-war and contemporary artists and estates. Timothy Taylor will present Showering’s first solo exhibition with the gallery at its London space in January 2022.

Showering (b. 1991, London, UK) is known for her enigmatic, richly coloured portraits of figures in amorphous domestic settings or landscapes. Often solitary or in pairs, her figures exist in a state of reflection, intimacy and solitude: an emotionally ambiguous scene of a couple locked in an embrace, hands clasping over a table, a pensive figure looks towards a pregnant woman immersed in a body of water. Rendered in deep shades of amber, green and marigold yellow, Showering’s figures seem to slide in and out of their surroundings, while specific elements - rolling hills, mountains or lakes in a landscape, furniture or features—collapse into fluid pools of paint. These areas of abstraction seem on the verge of shifting into other forms, capturing the elusive and changing realities of subjectivity, memory, imagination and desire.

The artist describes her subject as ‘emotion made tangible’, a focus that begins with her process, in which Showering allows pools of paint to take shape on the canvas, searching for hints of the figurative form around which she will construct her compositions. Personal symbols and totems within her paintings serve as clues to specific moments, feelings and people within Showering’s own life, yet her collage-like evocation of inner thought allows the viewer to find their own personal experiences refracted within the artist’s allusive gaze. The shifts between abstraction and figuration lend her paintings a suggestive atmosphere of narrative drama lying just beyond the frame, while evocations of childhood memories and biomorphic imagery link her to artists such as Arshile Gorky and Paula Rego as well as the tradition of German Expressionism.

‘Antonia’s oil portraits isolate the interior world by giving it physical form, trapping emotions in swirling swathes of abstract paint. In her exploration of the psychological landscape through the border between abstraction and figuration, Showering is working in an established tradition of artists dating back to the post-war period, including Jean Dubuffet and Philip Guston, with whom the gallery has a long history and tradition of sales and exhibitions.’ – Timothy Taylor

Antonia Showering (b. 1991) was born in London, England, where she currently lives and works. Showering holds a BA with honours from City and Guilds of London Art School (2016) and an MFA in Fine Art from Slade School of Fine Art (2018). In 2020, she featured in a solo show with White Cube, London. Showering has been included in group exhibitions internationally, including IRL (In Real Life) at Timothy Taylor (2021); Holding Hands, Union Gallery, London (2021); Art Icon, Whitechapel Gallery, London (2021); Adieu to Old EnglandThe Kids are Alright, Choi and Lager, Cologne (2020); Out Of This World at Stephen Friedman Gallery, London (2019); In the Company Of at TJ Boulting Gallery, London (2018); New Contemporaries at South London Gallery, London (2018); Kennedy Doig & Showering at Baert Gallery, Los Angeles (2018); and Great Women Artists at Mother, London (2017). Showering was the recipient of the New Contemporaries x SPACE Studio Bursary Award in 2018, The Great Women Artists Residency at Palazzo Monti in 2018 and the 2018 Henry Tonks Award.