Introducing: Glittery tampons and nipples on pizza! Introducing Chloe Wise

Date
6 February 2014

This week we realised that it’s been forever since we featured an artist who makes nipples and bacon out of latex, silcone and oil paint, and decided that it’s high time we rectify such a gross oversight.

Fortunately along came Chloe Wise, a Canadian artist working in New York who has the answers to all of our prayers. Chloe’s work tests the parameters of digital and real life, and where the two merge. Recently completing a project called Sometimes Irregular which sees her create tampons in every material under the sun (current examples include Oreo cookie, glitter, human hair, quinoa and a tiny little whale) with the tagline “you’re unique, you’re fabulous, you’re one of a kind, and so is your period! You’re not regular… Why should your tampon be?” Other projects include Stars of David Schwimmer, Larry David made of bacon, and silicone nipples on pizza. Read on to find out about Chloe’s creative process…

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Chloe Wise: Sometimes Irregular

Where do you work?

I recently moved from Canada to New York, and my studio is currently in Brooklyn. I share a studio with my BFF and Secret Meat collaborator, Adam Levett. Our studio is near a Costco. As you can imagine, it’s magical. 

How does your working day start?

I lay in bed spooning my teddy bear, stretching, making weird baby pterodactyl sounds and texting selfies to everyone I know for the first two hours of most days. Then I have a million coffees and head on a mission to acquire the supplies I need for the day. This ranges from bacon, kale, Gatorade, oil paint, glitter, etc. I usually get to my studio by noon and leave after midnight. 

How do you work and how has that changed?

I used to focus mainly on painting and some photoshop and video work, but recently I’ve gotten into sculpture, which I’m thoroughly enjoying. I find excitement in creating tangible objects that exist with volume. I’m in the process of finding ways to merge the different media I work in. For example, I’ve been making paintings into GIFs, adding sculptural elements to paintings, making Photoshopped contexts for sculptures, using paintings in videos, and so on. I’m interested in observing the intersections between politics of identity and social media, or simply, the intersection between life IRL and online. One thing that won’t change for me is working with humour. Almost everything I create has an element of humour in it; I definitely don’t take myself too seriously and neither does my work. LOLs are vital!

Where would we find you when you’re not at work?

Trolling the streets of New York/doing a dance on someone’s lawn/texting on a beach.

Would you intern for yourself?

Heck yes, that would be the best! Intern me would come to work with surprise snacks for artist me, and artist me would be like “awwww you’re the best intern ever, surprise, I got you snacks too!” and we would share the candy, grapes, etc. that we brought each other. 

In all seriousness, I’ve worked for a lot of artists and I still do, and it’s such an invaluable learning experience; gaining experience firsthand is so much more interesting and fun than art school was. I’ve worked for artists who work in such vastly disparate mediums, from mould-making and painting to vacuum-sealing, and it has taught me so much. Intern me would love coming to work and making tampons out of quinoa, moulds of croissants, and funny green screen GIFs. We would be best friends, but I hope she wouldn’t mind being wildly underpaid.

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Chloe Wise: Star of David Schwimmer

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Chloe Wise: Pierced P’ep’es

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Chloe Wise: QUIT PLAYIN’ GAMES WITH MY NIPS (detail)

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Chloe Wise: Sometimes Irregular

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Chloe Wise: Sometimes Irregular

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Chloe Wise: Sometimes Irregular

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About the Author

Maisie Skidmore

Maisie joined It’s Nice That fresh out of university in the summer of 2013 as an intern before joining full time as an Assistant Editor. Maisie left It’s Nice That in July 2015.

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