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.
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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.