Chantal Joffe paints women and girls with a directness that can feel almost uncomfortably close. Her own mother, daughter and herself are recurring subjects, across 30 years of work. Joffe works in oil and pastel, often at a scale that dwarfs her sitters' actual size. She draws on family photographs and fashion magazines to build portraits that track how bodies and faces change with age, motherhood and time.
Joffe has painted her mother, Daryll, for more than 30 years. She also painted a self-portrait every single day of 2018. Printmaking, chiefly etching, has become an increasingly significant part of that same unflinching practice.
Joffe has painted her mother, Daryll, for more than 30 years. She also painted a self-portrait every single day of 2018. Printmaking, chiefly etching, has become an increasingly significant part of that same unflinching practice.
Summary
Chantal Joffe paints women and girls with a directness that can feel almost uncomfortably close. Her own mother, daughter and herself are recurring subjects, across 30 years of work. Joffe works in oil and pastel, often at a scale that dwarfs her sitters' actual size. She draws on family photographs and fashion magazines to build portraits that track how bodies and faces change with age, motherhood and time.
Joffe has painted her mother, Daryll, for more than 30 years. She also painted a self-portrait every single day of 2018. Printmaking, chiefly etching, has become an increasingly significant part of that same unflinching practice.
Joffe has painted her mother, Daryll, for more than 30 years. She also painted a self-portrait every single day of 2018. Printmaking, chiefly etching, has become an increasingly significant part of that same unflinching practice.
Artworks by Chantal Joffe
About Chantal Joffe
Biography
About Chantal Joffe
Chantal Joffe was born in 1969 in Vermont and moved to London with her family at the age of 13. She completed a foundation course at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts, then earned a degree in fine art from the Glasgow School of Art. She completed a master's in painting from the Royal College of Art in 1994.
Painting the women closest to her
Joffe's paintings return again and again to the women in her life. Her mother, Daryll, has been painted repeatedly since the early 1990s, and her daughter, Esme, has grown from infancy into adulthood across Joffe's canvases.
Working from photographs, fashion pages and her own reflection, she introduces deliberate distortions of scale and proportion. She has argued that these shifts can make a figure feel more truthful than a straightforward likeness. In 2018, Joffe painted a self portrait every day of the year. The project was shown across two sites at Victoria Miro gallery in 2019. It was the first instalment in a loose trilogy that continued with paintings of her daughter and, most recently, her mother.
Etching a family
Printmaking has become a significant part of Joffe's practice through her ongoing work with Paragon Press. A recent series of etchings extends the same cast of family and friends who appear in her paintings onto paper, working in the same loose, immediate line as her drawing.
In 2018, she was commissioned to create a permanent public artwork, A Sunday Afternoon in Whitechapel, for the new Elizabeth line platforms at Whitechapel station. It was later released as a silkscreen print edition, co-published with the Whitechapel Gallery.
Joffe won the Royal Academy's Charles Wollaston Award in 2006. Her work is held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Portrait Gallery and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Biography
About Chantal Joffe
Chantal Joffe was born in 1969 in Vermont and moved to London with her family at the age of 13. She completed a foundation course at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts, then earned a degree in fine art from the Glasgow School of Art. She completed a master's in painting from the Royal College of Art in 1994.
Painting the women closest to her
Joffe's paintings return again and again to the women in her life. Her mother, Daryll, has been painted repeatedly since the early 1990s, and her daughter, Esme, has grown from infancy into adulthood across Joffe's canvases.
Working from photographs, fashion pages and her own reflection, she introduces deliberate distortions of scale and proportion. She has argued that these shifts can make a figure feel more truthful than a straightforward likeness. In 2018, Joffe painted a self portrait every day of the year. The project was shown across two sites at Victoria Miro gallery in 2019. It was the first instalment in a loose trilogy that continued with paintings of her daughter and, most recently, her mother.
Etching a family
Printmaking has become a significant part of Joffe's practice through her ongoing work with Paragon Press. A recent series of etchings extends the same cast of family and friends who appear in her paintings onto paper, working in the same loose, immediate line as her drawing.
In 2018, she was commissioned to create a permanent public artwork, A Sunday Afternoon in Whitechapel, for the new Elizabeth line platforms at Whitechapel station. It was later released as a silkscreen print edition, co-published with the Whitechapel Gallery.
Joffe won the Royal Academy's Charles Wollaston Award in 2006. Her work is held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Portrait Gallery and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.