Saskia Colwell
Skin on Skin
About the exhibition
Victoria Miro is delighted to present Skin on Skin by London-based artist Saskia Colwell. In 2019, the gallery established a studio space in Venice for invited artists to spend extended time in the historic city and make new bodies of work. During a two-month residency in Spring 2024, Saskia Colwell began a series of charcoal works on vellum which she later completed in her London studio.
Saskia Colwell is a London-based artist whose work explores themes of voyeurism, intimacy and representation. Using charcoal, charcoal powder and chalk on natural calfskin vellum, a traditional support that has been used in art for centuries, she creates a close connection between the body and skin as both subject matter and medium, whereby the vellum, with its natural imperfections, is held in dialogue with the human body depicted. Often intimate in scale, her works offer expansive considerations of female representation and contemporary issues of censorship and agency.
About the exhibition
Presented by
Victoria Miro Venice
Artist
Saskia Colwell
Dates
01 Feb - 15 Mar 2025
Victoria Miro is delighted to present Skin on Skin by London-based artist Saskia Colwell. In 2019, the gallery established a studio in Venice for invited artists to spend extended time in the historic city and make new bodies of work. During a two-month residency in Spring 2024, Colwell began a series of charcoal works on vellum which she later completed in her London studio.
The new body of work in Skin on Skin explores themes of voyeurism, intimacy and representation. The interplay between the softness of charcoal and the organic quality of vellum creates a close connection to the human body in images which question norms surrounding female representation and contemporary issues of censorship and agency.
Colwell’s works deliberately blur stylistic, visual, and formal lines, as Hannah Hutchings-Georgiou defines in a newly commissioned essay: ‘Existing at the interstices of the private and the public, the intimate and the distant, the licit and the illicit, the delicate and the crude, the classical and the contemporary, Colwell’s drawings profess innocence even when they are ripe with knowing. Bordering on sculpted exactitude when completed in the softest of chalks and charcoal powder, her work delivers one thing, only to dare us to unwrap, to see, to touch, another’.
Saskia Colwell
Born in 1999 in London, where she currently lives and works, Saskia Colwell graduated from the Masters Painting Programme at the Royal College of Art in 2023. In 2022 she completed a BA (Hons) in Painting at the Slade School of Fine Art and, in 2018, the Foundation Year at the Royal Drawing School.
Her work has been included in several group exhibitions including LEDA and the SWAN: a myth of creation and destruction, curated by Minna Moore Ede and presented by Vortic in collaboration with Victoria Miro, London (2024), VAMPIRE::MOTHER curated by Jasmine Wahi in collaboration with Anat Ebgi Gallery, Los Angeles (2024), Conscious Unconscious at Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London (2023) and Summer Lovin’ curated by Joan Tucker and Henry Relph at Stems Gallery, Paris (2022). Colwell’s work is in a number of private collections.
Saskia Colwell
About the artist
Born in 1999 in London, UK. Lives and works in London, UK.
Born in 1999 in London, where she currently lives and works, Saskia Colwell graduated from the Masters Painting Programme at the Royal College of Art in 2023. In 2022 she completed a BA (Hons) in Painting at the Slade School of Fine Art and, in 2018, the Foundation Year at the Royal Drawing School.
Her work has been included in several group exhibitions including LEDA and the SWAN: a myth of creation and destruction, curated by Minna Moore Ede and presented by Vortic in collaboration with Victoria Miro, London (2024), VAMPIRE::MOTHER curated by Jasmine Wahi in collaboration with Anat Ebgi Gallery, Los Angeles (2024), Conscious Unconscious at Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London (2023) and Summer Lovin’ curated by Joan Tucker and Henry Relph at Stems Gallery, Paris (2022). Colwell’s work is in a number of private collections.
Works presented in Saskia Colwell...
Saskia ColwellImperfect Symmetry, 2024
Saskia ColwellThe Throne, 2024
Saskia ColwellCookie Jar, 2024
Saskia ColwellFingers Crossed, 2024
Saskia ColwellThe Cheerleader, 2024
Saskia ColwellHomemade, 2024
Saskia ColwellPraise the Lord, 2024
Saskia ColwellMask Off, 2024
Saskia ColwellTurning the other Cheek, 2024
In Cookie Jar, I wanted to create a work that plays with perception and forces the viewer to do a double take. That shift between what you think you're seeing and what's actually there is central to this piece. The title, Cookie Jar, is a playful nod to the phrase ‘hand in the cookie jar’, but with a cheeky twist. I wanted to add a layer of humour and mischief, balancing this illusion with a deeper exploration of how we interpret the body. The hand's placement and the way the leg folds are carefully composed to heighten the illusion, making the body feel both intimate and abstract. It's not about shock value, but about inviting curiosity and encouraging people to look closer. This piece is as much about playfulness as it is about challenging how we see and interpret familiar shapes and gestures.
In this piece Fingers Crossed, I wanted to embrace a sense of silliness and humour by manipulating the armpit to resemble female genitalia. There’s something inherently playful about the act – it’s a visual joke that catches you off guard, making you do a double take. It plays with the body in a way that’s cheeky and light-hearted, inviting the viewer to laugh or at least smile at the absurdity of the illusion. For me, this piece is about not taking the body too seriously. The human form is fascinating and powerful, but it can also be funny and awkward. By transforming something as ordinary as an armpit into something unexpected, I wanted to highlight the body’s potential for humour and its ability to surprise us – finding joy in the absurd and seeing the familiar in unfamiliar ways.
In Homemade, I wanted to explore how perception can shift and how the body can transform into something unexpected. At first glance, the work might appear to depict an intimate interaction between two people, but it’s actually one person, with the tongue interacting with their own arm while the hand manipulates the flesh. That play between assumption and reality is central to this piece.
The title, Homemade, reflects the self-created nature of the image, something personal and entirely constructed from one body. It plays on the idea of something that looks collaborative or sensual but is, in fact, completely self-contained. It’s about inviting the viewer to reconsider what they’re looking at and how easily the body can be reimagined.
The folds of the skin and the placement of the tongue and hand are carefully arranged to create this illusion, transforming an ordinary gesture into something provocative and ambiguous. I wanted to show how the body’s forms can be manipulated and reinterpreted to create new layers of meaning, encouraging a second look and challenging assumptions about intimacy and interaction.
Imperfect Symmetry explores the tension between symmetry and imperfection. The vellum’s natural vertical line splits the image of the body in half, perfectly following the body down from the breasts to the genitals. It highlights the impossibility of true symmetry, most noticeable in the genitalia. With this piece, I wanted to draw focus on the tension between the ideal and the real.
For Mask Off, I drew inspiration from the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. His ability to abstract the human body into something sculptural resonates with me, and I wanted to explore a similar approach in this piece. Here, the body is presented without a face, without the ‘mask’ of identity or expression. The face, often the most recognisable and personal part of the human form, is absent. It’s not about the person – it’s about form and structure. Symmetry has this power to transform something organic, like the human body, into something architectural or designed.
By focusing on the arms and torso and removing the face, I’ve reduced the body to a collection of shapes and forms. Playing with soft shadows and smooth tones, I wanted to highlight the sculptural quality of the figure, making the limbs and curves feel less like anatomy and more like an arrangement of lines and planes. Seeing the body not as flesh, but as a work of design.
With Praise the Lord, I wanted to play with how we see and interpret the body. At first glance, the feet resemble hands pressed together in prayer, a gesture of devotion. But as you look closer, you realise they’re actually feet, which immediately challenges that initial perception. The title reinforces this connection between the physicality of the body and a spiritual act.
In The Cheerleader, I wanted to recreate a cheer pose, upright and strong, and explore how it transforms the body into something symbolic yet ambiguous. Without the arms and legs to complete the pose, the body becomes an abstracted form. This cropping brings a focus to the work’s texture and details rather than its action. What’s striking to me about this piece of vellum is the heavy vein work on the right side. That veining tells a story – it’s a trace of the calf’s life, indicating that it died lying on that side of its body. That detail feels important to me, as it brings forth thoughts of reality and mortality, even though the rest of the composition plays with abstraction. The veins aren’t just marks, but a reminder of life and death. There’s a tension between strength and vulnerability – the pose suggests confidence and power, but the marks on the vellum speak to the body’s history and its inevitable fragility.
In The Throne, the legs are positioned symmetrically and frame the chair at the centre, acting as both a throne and a barrier. By blocking the genitals with the chair, I wanted to introduce a sense of restraint or mystery, which contrasts with the vulnerability of the exposed legs and hands. I feel as though the symmetry gives this piece a sense of order and calm, even though there’s a playful, almost absurd quality to the way the body is positioned on the chair.
In Turning the other Cheek, I wanted to focus on the curves and natural flow of the body, using the composition to create a sense of subtle movement. The spine, snaking upward in the composition, was a key focus for me. Its soft curve feels almost like a line of energy running through the piece, connecting the lower body to the upper. I wanted the dark background to act almost as a counterpoint, anchoring the composition and framing the body’s curves. There’s a sense of quiet tension in the movement, as though the body is caught mid-shift, drawing attention to how the skin folds and stretches.
