Chloe Blades paints the dinner parties of our dreams. Combining books, wine, politics and lashings of colour. She crafts vivid tablescapes that muse on what it means to be a modern woman.
Walk us through your creative journey.
After another miscarriage during lockdown, I turned the nursery into an art studio. I painted vaginas and boobs and drank gin with my friend Alanna on Zoom. I went on to have two baby boys and learned that you can, as a mum, love your children while also loving being in France, alone. This idea was one that people resonated with, and I was invited to exhibit at Crafty Baker and Railway Street Studios. I also won an emerging artist award at Upstairs Gallery.
Why dinner parties?
I read Deborah Levy’s memoir Real Estate. Where she suggests the only real estate a woman can own is that which she builds in her head. We’re living through a political climate of boys being influenced by unlovable men like Trump and Tate. Who are intimidated by us, obsessed with us. They’ll never access the real estate in our minds, though; a place that’s both beautiful and terrifying. I like creating dinner parties I imagine women escaping to.
Every painting looks so fun. Do these dinner parties get to happen in real life?
Yes. I love to peruse op-shops with my toddler for beautiful plates, candlesticks, bowls, and glasses, and then lay them out on a tablecloth. I hosted a Greek dinner party (where my imagined real estate is) and, once everyone was suitably inebriated, we did portrait drawing. But I leaned over a candle and set my hair on fire and stripped in front of everyone. Including my parents who were on holiday from England.
Is the brilliant colour palette that features throughout your work something that reflects in your everyday life?
I have no idea who I am style-wise after birthing two gigantic babies, but I brighten up our home as best I can. I framed a $27 tea towel from Studio Soph and swapped a piece of my art with one of Helen Perrett’s ceramic statues. I have an abundance of books, too, thanks to being a bookseller and they breathe life into every room.
What does a perfect day of creating look like to you?
By some divine miracle I have the house to myself and all my socks are paired. I imagine spreading my library art books about the floor and hope the genius of Frida channels through me by osmosis while I paint and drink from a tea urn – or vat of gin.
Is there any medium or genre you’re keen to try?
Goauche. My friend Emma Paton does the most intricate paintings using it. I’m also attending life-drawing sessions and I’m terrible, but it gets me out.
In what ways does bookselling impact your art?
Bookselling gave me the focal point for my art and without books, I don’t know what I’d paint (or do). I have to take a step back to appreciate that I’m an artist and manager of Unity Books with some reviewing on the side for Crane Brothers. Books and art are for me intrinsically linked and I can’t believe my luck I get to enjoy both.
Who or what are your biggest artistic inspirations?
My mum. She was an art teacher in a prison, and from her time at Norwich School of Fine Art, there were resin dolls on strings dangling around our house. Jacqueline Fahey for her use of the domestic space. Evie Kemp for her magnetic use of bold colours, and I’m in awe of Natalie Savage’s tables.
Is there any piece in particular that you’re really proud of?
There’s one that I kept because I painted it with the baby strapped to me when he was 5-7 weeks old. That was a pleasant memory during what was otherwise a difficult trifecta of mastitis, gastro and haemorrhoids.
“I like creating dinner parties I imagine women escaping to.”
What’s on the horizon for your art?
I’ll be at Upstairs Gallery, Titirangi in August exhibiting with Laurette Looker. And also at Art in the Park at Eden Park in September. I’m not sure how it will all come together yet as I get two hours on a Wednesday to paint. But I’m optimistic.
How can our readers find you and your work?
At Railways Street Studios and I have a website: chloeblades.com and an Instagram account: @_KloeKloe
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