Antonia Showering: A Painter’s Layered Depiction of Family Ties

In Antonia Showering's new exhibition, "In Line," at Timothy Taylor in New York - her first solo show since becoming a mother - the British painter explores cycles of life and shifting roles within a family. Showering, who pours oil paint onto a distemper-brushed canvas while it's flat and lets the colors pool, will sometimes spend weeks on an artwork, like the eerie painting "Pruning" (2024), which shows one figure atop another in a situation that seems both "sexual and surgical," she says. In that painting, "you can see a palimpsest of paint leading up to the final surface," she adds. Her expressive compositions often feature these layers of pentimenti, the ghostlike traces of older versions of an artwork that remain visible even after they're painted over, evoking memories, regrets and dreams. Other times, Showering goes to the canvas with an idea in mind. Living and working in pastoral Somerset, Showering says she feels removed from her cohort, so she frequently spends time on the phone with friends. Some of her new pieces have come out of these conversations. "The Waiting Room" (2025) - in which orange-and-purple light suffuses a room where a pensive, naked woman sits in bed with her newborn baby beside her - was informed by her friend the art historian Katy Hessel, who'd recently read aloud an extract from her upcoming book, "How to Live an Artful Life." Each painting, Showering says, "is all about trying to translate and share a feeling."