Chantal Joffe
Chantal Joffe
The exhibition centred around a powerful group of seven large-scale paintings where the artist restricted her palette to dark tones of black, red, blue and white. The works offer complex fictional portrayals of the artist's heroines painted chronologically and moving towards us in time from the 1840's. As well as conceptual explorations of representations of female icons, the works also engage with key moments in literature, painting and feminist history.
Both specific and non-specific, these are imagined depictions of women - some are real individuals and others hybrid figures - born out of Joffe's consideration of works of art and literature and the social climate in which they were created. Manet's The Drummer Boy, the writings of Emily Brontë and Emily Dickinson, the paintings of Lee Krasner and Tamara de Lempicka are all referenced here along with the intimate musings of Edmund White and the passionate polemics of Susan Sontag. Each painting shows these young women at a point early in their lives, when they are beginning to find a voice and question what it means to pursue a dream of being an artist. Set against dark backgrounds and located somewhere not of this time, the strongly contoured bodies are depicted in awkward or sexual poses, distorted or kneeling but equally conveying a sense of vulnerability. The models - as is often the case in Joffe's work - are taken from photographs in contemporary fashion magazines and bear little or no resemblance to their imagined counterparts.
The series begins with a portrayal of a young androgynous girl which formally pays homage to Manet's strong black outlining of figures, drawing attention both to the surface of the picture plane and the paint. Next, Emilys Brontë and Dickinson merge into the single likeness of a young 19th- century author, whilst positioned later, in the 20th- century, a depiction of Lee Krasner suggests an alternative to the machismo world of abstract expressionism and the works of Krasner's husband Jackson Pollock and other mid-century male figures whose language so dominated the art world that many women artists were overlooked for decades: Louise Bourgeois, Alice Neel and Krasner to name but a few. Further into Joffe's series lies the influence of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction of Frank Stella, whose stripes become the backdrop for a young female beatnik. The exception to the series is the last painting, a portrayal of intellectual and activist Susan Sontag as a young woman alongside a heavily blacked-out male figure, again symbolic of the contributions to contemporary culture made by a woman in a predominantly male-orientated world.
Characterised by Joffe's fluid style and deliberate distortion of scale and form that exudes psychological and emotional force; the restricted palette adopted in this series of works results in a presentation that is both looser and freer. Left deliberately untitled, these works are not portraits of single personalities but rather paintings, loaded with symbolism, acknowledging the rich history of the creativity of women who have profoundly impacted literature, artistic practice, and cultural thought.
Born in 1969, Chantal Joffe lives and works in London. She holds an MA from the Royal College of Art. She was awarded the Royal Academy Woollaston Prize in 2006. Joffe has exhibited nationally and internationally at the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, New York (2009); University of the Arts, London (2007), MIMA Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (2007), Royal Academy of Arts, London (2005), Galleri KB, Oslo (2005) and Bloomberg Space, London (2004).
Related
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Edition
Posted
March 20 2024
Chantal Joffe creates a new edition in support of Studio Voltaire
This lithograph has been made exclusively for House of Voltaire on the occasion of Studio Voltaire's 30th anniversary, to raise funds for the organisation's artistic and public programmes. -
Edition
Posted
March 5 2024
Chantal Joffe creates a new, limited-edition print in support of Hospital Rooms
Chantal Joffe has created this limited-edition etching to support the work of Hospital Rooms, a charity that transforms inpatient mental health units with contemporary art. -
Interview
Posted
September 7 2023
‘These paintings are not like any other paintings I’ve made’ – Chantal Joffe talks to AnOther
As an exhibition of new paintings opens in Venice, Chantal Joffe talks to Thea Hawlin about her experience of living and painting in the Italian city. AnOther Thea Hawlin -
Exhibition
Posted
March 17 2023
Chantal Joffe features in Finding Family at the Foundling Museum
This exhibition (17 March–27 August 2023) looks at the ways in which artists have represented and responded to ideas of family, past and present. Foundling Museum, London -
Exhibition
Posted
August 24 2022
Chantal Joffe: Family Lexicon at Koo House, South Korea
The exhibition (24 August– 4 December 2022) features a selection of works that depict the artist alongside significant figures in her life. Koo House, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea -
Commission
Posted
May 25 2022
Chantal Joffe: A Sunday Afternoon in Whitechapel goes on view at Whitechapel station on the newly launched central section of the Elizabeth line
The artwork reflects the local east London community enjoying a typical Sunday afternoon. The works were initially made as small-scale paper collages that were subsequently rendered in laser-cut aluminium. Whitechapel station -
Review
Posted
August 24 2021
Chantal Joffe: Story reviewed by Artforum
‘Motherhood and childhood are both deeply universal and not, both innate and entirely constructed in their rituals, traditions, assumptions, associations. The stories we tell, the images we make of them, matter.’ Emily LaBarge, Artforum -
Review
Posted
June 9 2021
The Financial Times reviews Chantal Joffe: Story
’Joffe's mother peers out from her hallway… it is a painting about seeing, painting – focusing, framing an image – and the extent to which we allow a slice of ourselves to be known.’ Jackie Wullschläger, The Financial Times -
Interview
Posted
June 8 2021
Apollo: In the studio with… Chantal Joffe
‘I love everything about it – but most of all that it looks on to the canal.’ Apollo -
Exhibition
Posted
March 3 2021
Now live: The Artist’s Mother: Lucie and Daryll, featuring Lucian Freud and Chantal Joffe
IMMA, The Irish Museum of Modern Art, presents a virtual exhibition (3 March–8 August 2021) available to view on Vortic and at imma.ie, followed by a gallery display of the pastels, which will be available to visit in the Freud Centre when current Covid-19 restrictions are lifted. -
Interview
Posted
October 21 2020
Painting the personal: Chantal Joffe talks to Art UK
'Sometimes I paint people – I see them as beautiful; in the moment I paint people they look beautiful, but the painting doesn't always come out like that. I'm not always in control – they're never quite what I hope. It's a strange, exposing experience for both parties.' Ruth Millington, Artuk.org -
News story
Posted
September 25 2020
Country & Town House interview Chantal Joffe
Chantal Joffe speaks with Sarah Hyde about her new show, For Esme – with Love and Squalor, on view at Arnolfini, Bristol. Sarah Hyde, Country & Town House -
News story
Posted
September 19 2020
‘Electric, Like Time Travel’: The New York Review of Books interviews Chantal Joffe
Chantal Joffe speaks with The New York Review of Books. Imogen Greenhalgh, The New York Review of Books -
Exhibition
Posted
August 25 2020
Chantal Joffe: For Esme – with Love and Squalor, now open at Arnolfini, Bristol
The exhibition (3 September–22 November 2020) explores the intimate act of painting and portraiture. Taking its name from J.D. Salinger’s short story For Esmé – with Love and Squalor (1950) in which time hangs as heavy as the protagonist’s ‘enormous-faced chronographic-looking wristwatch’, the exhibition captures the changing faces across the years of Chantal and her daughter Esme, moving between mother and daughter, love and squalor, and the act of care and being cared for. Arnolfini, Bristol -
Interview
Posted
August 19 2020
Chantal Joffe talks to Ben Luke for The Art Newspaper’s A brush with… podcast
In the latest in this new series of podcasts from The Art Newspaper, Ben Luke talks to Chantal Joffe about the cultural experiences that have had an impact on her... The Art Newspaper -
Exhibition
Posted
July 8 2020
Now reopen at the Foundling Museum – Portraying Pregnancy, featuring Chantal Joffe
This major exhibition (now extended until 23 August 2020) explores representations of pregnancy through portraits from the past 500 years. Foundling Museum, London -
News
Posted
June 2 2020
Chantal Joffe creates a special cover for the RA Magazine
For Summer 2020 issue of the magazine, produced as the RA closed its doors in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus, the editorial team invited writers and artists to respond to the relationship between art and the domestic world. A special cover was created by Chantal Joffe, depicting her sister and niece in their doorway. RA Magazine -
Picture story
Posted
February 19 2020
The New York Times T Magazine commissions Chantal Joffe
Work by the artist was commissioned to accompany Megan O'Grady's essay on why tales of female trios are newly relevant. Joffe's painting Me, Em and Nat depicts herself and her sisters as children in the 1970s. Megan O'Grady, The New York Times -
Exhibition
Posted
June 29 2019
Chantal Joffe is included in Cut and Paste: 400 Years of Collage at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art
The exhibition (29 June–27 October 2019) is the first survey exhibition of collage ever to take place in Britain. It spans a period of more than 400 years and includes more than 250 works. Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh -
Exhibition
Posted
May 21 2019
Chantal Joffe is featured in Downtown Painting: Presented by Alex Katz
A summer group exhibition (5 June–20 July 2019) echoing the spirit of the downtown art scene in New York in the 1950s and 1960s. Peter Freeman Inc, New York -
Channel
May 16 2019
Chantal Joffe: Self-Portraits
On New Year’s Day, 2018, the artist set herself the challenge of working on a self-portrait every day for the coming year. This daily practice – through personal lows and highs, in the shifting white light of a prolonged London winter and the savage heat of New York in summer – has resulted in a series of characteristically unflinching works. -
Review
Posted
April 28 2019
Waldemar Januszczak reviews Chantal Joffe in The Sunday Times
'… there is something almost Manet-like in her ability to capture subtle and nuanced effects with brushstrokes 2in wide' Waldemar Januszczak, The Sunday Times -
Review
Posted
April 27 2019
Sue Hubbard reviews Chantal Joffe in Artlyst
'She charts the process of living and ageing, tracing the difficulties, disappointments and small victories it throws up like a series of maps on the landscape of the faces she paints.' Sue Hubbard, Artlyst -
Preview
Posted
April 11 2019
Olivia Laing writes about Chantal Joffe in the Paris Review
'Unless you’re Benjamin Button, you’re getting older by the second. But emotional states are more like weather systems, moving in and out…' Olivia Laing, The Paris Review -
Interview
Posted
April 6 2019
Chantal Joffe talks to Rowan Pelling in The Telegraph
‘You spend 30 years working out life – then everything falls away’ Rowan Pelling, The Telegraph -
Exhibition
Posted
March 16 2019
Now open: Childhood Now, featuring Chantal Joffe, at Compton Verney
The exhibition (16 March–16 June 2019) features the work of three contemporary painters and partners Compton Verney's survey show Painting Childhood: From Holbein to Freud, which spans some 500 years of paintings, drawings and sculptures of children. Compton Verney Art Gallery & Park, Warwickshire -
Exhibition
Posted
March 3 2019
Collezione Maramotti opens its rehung galleries, featuring displays by Jules de Balincourt and Chantal Joffe
For the first time since the opening of Collezione Maramotti in October 2007, ten rooms on the second floor of the permanent display have been rehung to present some of the projects shown during the first ten years of activity: including Jules de Balincourt (2012) and Chantal Joffe (2014). Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia -
Exhibition
Posted
October 25 2018
Chantal Joffe in Exposed: The Naked Portrait at Laing Art Gallery
This exhibition (27 October 2018–3 March 2019) of works from the National Portrait Gallery collection invites questions about identity and gender, the real and ideal. Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne -
News
Posted
September 10 2018
Chantal Joffe is announced as a judge of the Evening Standard Art Prize
Ben Luke visits the artist in her studio to discuss starting out as an artist, painting people and joining the judging panel of the Evening Standard Art Prize. -
Preview
Posted
June 3 2018
Louise Benson writes about Chantal Joffe’s Herb at Sixteen as part of Elephant’s Contemporary Classics series
'Here is the compassionate honesty that characterizes Joffe’s mark-making, full with the psychological undercurrents to be found when looking…' Elephant Louisa Benson -
Review
Posted
May 29 2018
Rachel Spence reviews Chantal Joffe: Personal Feeling Is The Main Thing in the Financial Times
'This is motherhood uncut. Tough, inelegant, utterly devoted, yet also transient in its evolution towards a shift in power.' Rachel Spence, The Financial Times -
Interview
Posted
May 23 2018
Sue Hubbard writes about Chantal Joffe in The London Magazine
'She not so much produces portraits, in the sense of a photographic likeness, but investigations – a sense of what it is like to inhabit the subject’s skin.' The London Magazine Sue Hubbard -
Exhibition
Posted
May 19 2018
Chantal Joffe: Personal Feeling is the Main Thing at The Lowry
An exhibition (19 May–2 September 2018) of works from across Joffe's career addressing themes of portraiture, motherhood, passing time and art's relationship to history. The Lowry, Salford -
Interview
Posted
May 18 2018
Chantal Joffe talks to Hettie Judah in the i
‘Painting people is imagining your way into somebody else’ Hettie Judah, The i -
Feature
Posted
May 13 2018
‘Painting is a high-wire act’: Olivia Laing on sitting for Chantal Joffe
'I wanted to see what would happen if I wrote about her while she was painting me, if we could survey each other at the same time in an act of simultaneous witnessing.' Olivia Laing, The Observer -
Interview
Posted
April 25 2018
The May issue of Apollo features a cover story interview with Chantal Joffe
As she prepares for exhibitions at Victoria Miro Venice (14 April – 19 May 2018) and The Lowry (19 May – 2 September 2018), the artist discusses her most recent body of work with Harriet Baker. -
Exhibition
Posted
March 13 2018
Art Capital: Art for the Elizabeth line, featuring Chantal Joffe, Conrad Shawcross and Yayoi Kusama
The exhibition (13 March – 6 May 2018) brings together unseen material by Joffe, Shawcross, Kusama and all the artists contributing to the Crossrail Art Programme. Whitechapel Gallery -
Feature
Posted
March 1 2018
Olivia Laing writes in the Spring 2018 issue of Tate Etc about ageing bodies and her experience of modelling for Chantal Joffe
'I loved the way she articulated the smart of being there at all, an animal with its eyes open, not quite gelling with the room.' Olivia Laing, Tate Etc -
News story
Posted
December 14 2017
Chantal Joffe to create a major new work for the Elizabeth line station at Whitechapel
Joffe's work, titled A Sunday afternoon in Whitechapel, will be on view when the new Crossrail station opens in December 2018. -
Exhibition
Posted
December 5 2017
Chantal Joffe in From Life at the Royal Academy of Arts
The RA's exhibition (11 December 2017 – 11 March 2018) looks at the past, present and future of working from the life model, one of the cornerstones of artistic process. Royal Academy of Arts, London -
News story
Posted
November 29 2017
Chantal Joffe creates portraits of Jay-Z exclusively for T, the New York Times style magazine
The works were created exclusively to accompany an interview with Jay-Z in T's December 3 Holiday Issue. Image, Jay-Z with Blue Ivy, 2017. Courtesy Victoria Miro, London/Venice and Cheim & Read, New York. The New York Times -
Exhibition
Posted
August 9 2017
Works by Alice Neel and Chantal Joffe feature in ISelf Collection: The End of Love, at the Whitechapel Gallery
Contemporary portraiture – both real and imagined – and the relationship between self and other, or between artist, sitter and viewer, is further explored by nearly 30 international artists (30 August - 26 November 2017). Whitechapel Gallery, London -
Exhibition
Posted
May 1 2017
Chantal Joffe in Hope and Hazard: A Comedy of Eros, curated by Eric Fischl, at Hall Art Foundation
In this fresh and provocative show (6 May – 26 November 2017), Fischl illustrates the absurd extremes associated with romantic and sexual love. Desire, passion, vulnerability, disappointment, pleasure and torment are expressed as a Greek or Shakespearian comedy – epic and tragic, hopeful and hazardous. Hall Art Foundation, Reading, Vermont -
Exhibition
Posted
March 15 2017
Chantal Joffe donates work to the Jerwood Collection
The two paintings go on show as part of Look Back Now: Jerwood Gallery is 5 (15 March - 21 May 2017). Jerwood Gallery, Hastings, East Sussex -
Interview
Posted
February 13 2017
Master Class: Chantal Joffe in conversation
Watch the video of Joffe in conversation with Gemma Blackshaw at Zabludowicz Collection. Zabludowicz Collection, London -
Event
Posted
January 17 2017
Master Class: Chantal Joffe at Zabludowicz Collection
A free public lecture (7–9pm, 2 February 2017) as part of Testing Ground: Master Class, which invites leading international artists to share their expertise with a small group of emerging artists from around the country. Zabludowicz Collection, London -
Gallery Exhibition
22 January - 24 March 2016
Chantal Joffe
An exhibition of new work by Chantal Joffe, in which celebrated writers keep company with the artist's friends and family members. Practising painting and drawing as the loving collection of... Victoria Miro Mayfair -
Gallery Exhibition
24 June - 2 August 2008
Chantal Joffe
Chantal Joffe is well known for her expressive paintings of predominantly female figures. This latest exhibition will include an eclectic and wide-ranging group of subjects across two distinct bodies of... Victoria Miro Gallery I -
Gallery Exhibition
19 November - 17 December 2005
Chantal Joffe
Known for her expressive studies of women and children, these new large panels represent a move away from the intimacy characteristic of Chantal Joffe's previous work, and into a realm... Victoria Miro Gallery I -
Gallery Exhibition
4 April - 7 May 2003
Chantal Joffe: Women
'Joffe is effortlessly fluent in her descriptions of human emotions through manipulated external appearances... she shows the inherent gormlessness to which we are all susceptible, no matter how cool, which... Victoria Miro Gallery I -
Gallery Exhibition
12 January - 4 February 2000
Chantal Joffe
This show of recent work by Chantal Joffe continues the small individual figure studies for which she has enjoyed such success, but now with the addition of some larger works... Victoria Miro Gallery II -
Gallery Exhibition
4 April - 2 May 1997
Chantal Joffe
'The paintings are small format works with a figure or figures, usually partially cropped. I would like to think they are making something beautiful out of something trashy and perhaps... Victoria Miro Gallery II