Milly Thompson
Aroma Venus
16 April - 23 May 2026
Aroma Venus
16 April - 23 May 2026
The works in this exhibition invoke a tension between pleasure and indulgence and consider the seductive commodification of luxury, sensuality and the female body.
One of Thompson’s main influences was the work of Francis Picabia, especially his audacious use of mixed media and ever-changing painting styles to provoke and destabilise. She responded to Picabia with a series 'Pleasure Paintings', which mimic some of his motifs (e.g. women depicted with misplaced nipples and multiple eyes) with an ambiguous blend of respect and derision. Some paintings were more direct copies of his works (including his actual signature) and speak to both Picabia's ‘celebration' of women and his provocative move to undermine painting's inherited prestige by painting low-brow poster pinups of women.
Thompson, like Picabia, was also a publisher. The paintings in this exhibition are accompanied by a series of ‘Posters for Pleasure’, first exhibited in 2012 on the Aegean island of Stromboli . Each poster has three elements: a slogan, an image and the POSTERS FOR PLEASURE logo. In one image a woman is depicted in an act of gluttonous indulgence, while another features an image of an aspirational holiday or property location. One form of extravagance is acceptable, the other deeply not. As Thompson put it, 'The contradiction set up by these two different forms of gluttony/pleasure is central to my practice, for one is acceptable to polite society and the other is considered gauche. The contrast between these two emanations of pleasure and gluttony is heightened by the use of slogans, which is food writing at its most magniloquent.’
The ‘Desert Siren’ sculptures made around the same time as the ‘Pleasure Paintings’ present Grecian-style goddesses displayed with perfect yet comically artificial breasts nestling inside draperies made of polyester. They hang on the wall and sit on stretchers, linking them to a notion of painting. Despite being displayed like merchandise, these female forms retain a defiant carnality.
The title of the show, Aroma Venus, is also the title of the sole video work in the exhibition. It enfolds excerpts from the novels The Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys and Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne du Maurier, each centred on heroines who experience hope, desire and loss very differently in countries linked by a tradition of patriarchal/male profiteering in both people and exotic goods. Aroma Venus is a short film made using beachfront footage from Barbados amidst coconut groves. Eroticised images of men and women taken from glossy magazines dissolve in and out of the video footage of the exotic beach. The imagery in Thompson’s video seduces us with rolling waves and perfect bodies, whilst at its heart are words gleaned from novels with an anti-patriarchal tenor, within a colonial setting, as well as images sourced from magazines commodifying women, and a beach transformed as a yoga retreat.
Milly Thompson (1964-2022) was a UK-based interdisciplinary artist whose practice spanned exhibition making, publishing and collaboration. Working across painting, sculpture, print, moving image, text and performance she explored the visual rhetoric of commodity and pleasure, using mediated imagery to critically examine systems of value, gender and visibility.
Milly Thompson's solo exhibition MY BODY TEMPERATURE IS FEELING GOOD is presented at Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK
28 March – 30 August 2026
As a founding member of the influential 1990s artists collective BANK, Thompson exhibited widely in the UK and internationally. Her solo exhibitions include MY BODY TEMPERATURE IS FEELING GOOD at Goldsmiths CCA, London (2025), The Moon, The Sea & The Matriarch at Timespan, Helmsdale, Scotland (2019) and Merchandise & Accessories, Naming Rights, London (2017) Savoir Faire, Focal Point, UK (2009) and Milly Thompson's Opera, PEER, London, UK (2008). Her work has featured in major group exhibitions such as Rude Britannia at Tate Britain (2010), FAX at The Drawing Center, New York (2009), and Century City at Tate Modern (2001).
All images : Courtesy Estate of Milly Thompson and Amanda Wilkinson, London
