Chloé Grimes-Biltis

My practice centres on the psychological tension between desire and threat, and temptation and restraint, focusing on the dangerous allure of venomous siphonophores. Following an encounter with a Portuguese man o’ war washed up on shore, I became increasingly fascinated in these creatures. Beautiful yet carrying a lethal sting, they embody a contradiction that drives my work. Through hyperreal oil paintings, I aim to create images of them that feel seductive yet ambiguous, inviting prolonged close looking to become totally immersed in their unusual form.

I am interested in how images can become sites of longing, experience and storytelling. Drawing from scientific and documentary imagery, I turn natural objects into surreal encounters that evoke curiosity. By saturating colour and emphasising wetness and translucency, my paintings feel almost bodily, playing with a viewer’s drive for desire by arousing a natural craving to touch. This tangible experience allows my creatures to become vessels of forbidden desire.

I have worked extensively on found, sometimes unprimed boards, allowing oil to leach into the surface and create stains that suggest real moisture. I recently transitioned to painting on linen, a light sensitive material in which I build intense levels of detail. Through material enquiry, I play with the dialogue between man-made and natural worlds, seeing echos of the man o’ war within man-made environments. This creates an illusion of perception between what is familiar and unfamiliar, investigating how much of the creature can be shown before attraction becomes unsettling.

Expanding in scale has allowed me to depict the most captivating man o’ war which overwhelm and hypnotise the viewer through inescapable beauty. Ultimately, my paintings seek to entice while effectively hiding the true toxic forces behind their imagery, creating spaces where viewers confront their own impulses and experience deep sensory pleasure.