CHLOE WISE

Early Years

Chloe Wise was born in Montreal in 1990. She studied Fine Arts at Concordia University, graduating with a BFA in 2013 before relocating to New York City, where she continues to live and work. Wise’s formative years in Canada and her immersion in the digital and fashion-savvy art scene of New York laid the foundation for her multifaceted practice. Her Jewish heritage, cultural critique, and feminist sensibility are recurrent themes throughout her body of work.

Artworks

Wise is best known for her glossy, highly detailed paintings and surreal sculptures that dissect the aesthetics and rituals of contemporary life with wit and irony. Her practice spans painting, sculpture, video, and installation, offering a sharp, humorous reflection on the intersections of art, branding, and desire.

Padded Satire and Sculptural Bread

Wise rose to prominence with her sculptural series of hyperrealistic bread bags—life-sized replicas of challah, baguettes, bagels, and other baked goods adorned with luxury designer labels like Chanel, Prada, and Louis Vuitton. These sculptures, such as Bagel No. 5 (2014), blur the boundary between art and fashion, parodying the social currency of brand allegiance and the absurdity of commodity fetishism. What began as a tongue-in-cheek accessory to a friend’s outfit evolved into a viral commentary on status and consumption. These works established Wise’s early voice as an artist using humour, food, and fabrication to probe the psychology of desire and the artificial nature of value.

Oil Painting and the Social Persona

Wise’s painted portraits—often depicting friends in artfully cluttered interiors—exude theatricality, sensuality, and self-awareness. Inspired by Renaissance composition and Baroque light, these technically sophisticated paintings are laden with contemporary signifiers: organic produce, self-help books, skincare products, and screens. In Thank You for the Nice Fire (2020), a group lounges amid curated chaos, referencing both leisure and alienation. These paintings don’t just mock—they sensitively chart the existential weight of trying to be someone in a performative world. Her use of friends as models creates intimacy while also critiquing the flattening of identity into aesthetic. Wise’s canvases invite reflection on the gap between constructed persona and inner life.

Chloe Wise’s Paintings

Wise’s paintings are defined by their polished surfaces, stylised figuration, and richly symbolic mise-en-scène. Fusing Old Master techniques with digital-age aesthetics, her works highlight the paradoxes of authenticity, self-image, and consumption. Figures appear caught mid-performance, surrounded by props that hint at both aspirational living and psychological fragility—kombucha bottles, fruit platters, bathrobes, and unread books. These details function as both personal inventory and cultural satire. The emotional tone is deliberately unstable: vulnerable yet composed, seductive yet absurd. Whether staged as dinner parties, spa rituals or intimate snapshots, Wise’s painted scenes reflect a world of curated experiences where emotional expression, like beauty, is a rehearsed and aestheticised form.

Exhibitions

Chloe Wise has been the subject of both solo exhibitions and group exhibitions at important institutions. A selection of important exhibitions are provided below.

Solo Exhibitions

• But Wait There’s More!, On the High Line at 14th Street, New York (2024)
• Torn Clean, Almine Rech, Brussels (2024)
• Natural Causes, The Ranch, Montauk, New York (2023)
• Spite Unseen, Galerie Sébastien Bertrand, Geneva (2022)
• In Loveliness of Perfect Deeds, Blouin Division, Montréal (2022)
• And Everything Was True, Heart Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, Herning (2019)

Group Exhibition

• Copyists, Centre Pompidou-Metz, France (2025)
• Breasts, ACP Palazzo Franchetti, Venice (2024)
• SUPERKRAUT - cabbage in contemporary art, Museum Stadtpalais, Stuttgart (2023)
• fleur de peau, Passerelle centre d’art contemporain, Brest (2022)
• Artists Inspired by Music: Interscope Reimagined, LACMA, Los Angeles (2022)

Instagram

Chloe Wise’s Instagram can be found here.

Critical Reception

Chloe Wise’s practice has been widely discussed in international media and contemporary art platforms. Notable coverage includes features in Artsy, emergent magazine, and Interview Magazine. Speaking to Ocula Magazine on her 2024 exhibition in Brussels, Wise explains: ‘It’s for the lizard people. Representation for lizard people everywhere.’

Chloe Wise FAQs

Ocula | 2025