Coinciding with the Venice Art Biennale 2024, Roman Road presents a solo exhibition curated by Marisa Bellani dedicated to the artist Channatip Chanvipava. Titled “The Sound of Many Waters”, the show features eight new works that explore the notions of fixed identities, belonging and subjective memory. The exhibition is on view at Dimora ai Santi, Calle Larga Giacinto Gallina, Canneregio 6381, 30121, Venezia, and runs until May 27, 2024.
Channatip Chanvipava: The Sound of Many Waters. Venice (Italy), April 16, 2024.
Press text (excerpt):
Aligning with this year's Biennale theme 'Foreigners Everywhere’, Bellani turns to water as a powerful reference to address the concepts of queer identity and connection in a divided world. These are vibrantly expressed in Chanvipava’s work which navigates queer sensibilities with immense power and emotion. Water, in this instance, becomes a symbol of both connection and division, resonating with the complexities of queer identity.
Based in London, Channatip Chanvipava is a self-taught painter who embarked on his artistic journey after a degree in Economics, driven by an enduring passion for art cultivated since a young age. His unique style, marked by distinctive and bold brushstrokes inspired by the impressionists, seamlessly oscillates between abstraction and figuration. Notably, Chanvipava's compositions are characterized by layered, thick, and vibrant paint textures distinguished by vertical lines outlining forms. His organic and meditative artistic process relies on intuition and fragments of memory, pieced together to create a ‘tapestry’ of recollections. He navigates through colour as a vehicle to express form, bringing to light moments of reflection, contemplation and liberation. Without employing preliminary sketches or physical references, he paints directly on canvas and relies solely on memory and his acute understanding of space and depth.
Channatip Chanvipava: The Sound of Many Waters. Venice (Italy), April 16, 2024.
Press text (excerpt):
Aligning with this year's Biennale theme 'Foreigners Everywhere’, Bellani turns to water as a powerful reference to address the concepts of queer identity and connection in a divided world. These are vibrantly expressed in Chanvipava’s work which navigates queer sensibilities with immense power and emotion. Water, in this instance, becomes a symbol of both connection and division, resonating with the complexities of queer identity.
Based in London, Channatip Chanvipava is a self-taught painter who embarked on his artistic journey after a degree in Economics, driven by an enduring passion for art cultivated since a young age. His unique style, marked by distinctive and bold brushstrokes inspired by the impressionists, seamlessly oscillates between abstraction and figuration. Notably, Chanvipava's compositions are characterized by layered, thick, and vibrant paint textures distinguished by vertical lines outlining forms. His organic and meditative artistic process relies on intuition and fragments of memory, pieced together to create a ‘tapestry’ of recollections. He navigates through colour as a vehicle to express form, bringing to light moments of reflection, contemplation and liberation. Without employing preliminary sketches or physical references, he paints directly on canvas and relies solely on memory and his acute understanding of space and depth.
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CreativityTranscript
00:00 [ Background noise ]
00:28 My name is Marisa Bellani. I'm the curator of this exhibition, which is a solo show by
00:34 Shanatib Shanvipava called The Sound of Many Waters. This exhibition came
00:40 together after talking with the artist about this new body of work, which is
00:46 highly autobiographical and speaks, each painting speaks of one episode of his
00:55 life that has in recent years marked his growth and evolution through the many
01:04 years today. The water came as metaphor for connectedness and fluidity, which are
01:17 two important themes as well in this exhibition, talking about queerness,
01:21 sensibilities, temporality, and Venice was like such a perfect place to talk about
01:30 this because everything here is connected by water. It seems so obvious
01:35 to do it here. Then we, the first painting that Shanatib finished was this one,
01:43 which is Triumph of Life. It's a man riding a horse. This is a painting about
01:54 hope and I think from what our discussion, what he said was it's one of
02:01 the painting where you can relate personally to most, as in the figure
02:07 being maybe him, which is not the case in others. His works are between
02:15 abstraction and figuration, but very much leaning towards abstraction. There is
02:23 also a big work on the way he paints and how he applies layers after layers. The
02:35 drying time between each one is very long because he used like thick layers,
02:40 which is also very interesting for this exhibition about time and about
02:45 going back and forward. From going to his studio I could see like at different
02:51 stages of the painting, I could see how they would evolve and how he would
02:56 settle on the final result. Also through a conversation about colors, which
03:06 was not the case in his early paintings. They were more monochromatic white and
03:11 way less vivid like this. Colors have come into play recently, like maybe in
03:20 the past year, and they now represent an emotion. He attached an emotion to each
03:25 color, but not each color will tell one emotion. It's not as straightforward as
03:29 this. And then I think to talk about his brush paint and the symbols that are in
03:37 his painting, which you can find a lot, like the heart here, the hearts that are
03:44 here as well, like here, here, there, that they come back in each work and they also
03:52 come back in the small works. And these are very important. The two lines are the
04:03 heart center and it's like how he grounds himself. And my understanding,
04:08 which is always maybe personal, but my understanding is that each work being so
04:13 personal, it's always an event that it goes through and he overcomes it through
04:18 the painting. And he marks this is done when the two heart centers are there and
04:26 they are everywhere, but I don't see any here or maybe it's hidden, which maybe
04:32 means that the future fertile is still something pending and something that he
04:37 still needs to go through. This is a painting which depicts very abstractly
04:45 the rooms of a clinic where you can do like a, what's it called, like when you
04:55 want fertilizing. So he did like this and it was like very like one room
05:02 after another and it's very clinical and the green is obviously a color of hope
05:07 and you know and looking at the future. Then there are little gems like this one
05:18 which is a concentrate of his technique because also Charnaty is not a
05:28 conceptual artist, it's not all about what it means. Obviously it means a lot
05:32 to him and they also convey a more universal message to which we can all in
05:38 our own way relate to, but what I find exceptional and this is also why we work
05:43 together is his painting skills, although he self-taught and learned it through a
05:50 lifetime. But this is like somewhere where you can really see how we can
05:56 layer and test and like the size of his brush which is always the same and how
06:02 we use it. It's also very visible in a painting like Lovers at First Sight.
06:12 There are a lot of these brushstrokes, it's very airy and I find that the way he can
06:23 depict completely different atmosphere every time and however having a very
06:30 strong mark of us being able to recognize it's him and it's his brushstroke
06:36 is actually quite exceptional. Like this one, Fantasy Room, is a completely
06:43 different atmosphere where it seems cramped and that's also why we've
06:49 put it here in the show. And the person on the painting, we don't know
06:57 if he's entering or exiting the room and this is his fantasy room and all of us
07:04 again it's something that is very related to him but it's also something
07:09 that we can all relate what are our fantasies, which one can we share, when do
07:15 we need to lock the door, when can we leave it open and let other people enter,
07:20 share them and this level of intimacy that is talked about in this painting.
07:29 Now for the whole exhibition what is quite exceptional and remarkable is the
07:37 location that we managed to find and how the artist has occupied the space
07:46 without changing it but with a lot of integrity and respect to the original
07:52 architecture as added the perimeter of his own world. So these walls that are
07:59 very like chunky and metal to reflect the water and the reflection, they also
08:04 serve as a perimeter for the show so we know that we are inside this world and
08:11 inside the message that he wants to tell us. However everything else has remained
08:18 untouched and as it was and we are very lucky of where it is, it's absolutely
08:24 beautiful and even the original ceilings which they look like water and with this
08:30 blue brushstrokes almost similar to his, it's quite lucky and yeah and I think
08:39 it's a beautiful exhibition because it's merged quality of works, installation
08:48 and message so I was very very honored to be part of it.