Chantal Joffe
Chantal Joffe
On view at Wharf Road are large-scale canvases depicting the artist’s family and friends, by the acclaimed British painter Chantal Joffe. Exhibition continues at Mayfair, featuring selections from a year of self-portraits completed during 2018.
‘I think there are points in painting when there is literally nothing else you can do. You’ve got you, and you’ve got paint.’ – Chantal Joffe
Chantal Joffe brings great insight and integrity, as well as psychological and emotional force, to figurative painting. 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.
On view at Victoria Miro Mayfair are selected portraits from this series. Modest in scale, each is a depiction of the artist – full face or three-quarter view, in her painting clothes – titled with the date of its completion. The seriality of this display is immediately striking. Ordinarily, a single self-portrait, perhaps two, might be shown among a wider body of work. Here, what is true of any single self-portrait – that in embodying their work, the artist invites speculation about their innermost thoughts – is amplified as paintings, ostensibly similar in appearance, are installed throughout the gallery.
Moving between the paintings, one might notice differences of light, shadow, or painterly touch; the minute changes that occur from day to day, as well as less quantifiable shifts of mood or atmosphere. While Joffe has always been doggedly attentive to the visual facts before her; sensitive to, but in the end unwavering in her commitment to the stark reality – physical and emotional – of a person, there is special economy to her self-portraits. Just the artist, a mirror, her materials… Each is a meditation achieved by the most minimal means. Yet there is also a sense of routine to the creation of these works. Humour and self-deprecation play their parts, too, as the artist applies herself again and again to studying the familiar contours of her face, following her own co-ordinates and topography as if she was charting an unfamiliar territory.
Similar but infinitely various, these works offer a rich alternative to self-portraiture’s idea of essential truth. In each painting the artist puts forward a face to the world. But in doing so she asks whether we could ever think of ourselves as being the same person we were yesterday, or will be tomorrow. Could there ever be such a thing as a single, definitive self? The relationship to time and selfhood in these works is complex. As much as they are in themselves transient, records of moments past, they are ultimately a declaration – an affirmation – of presence.
Joffe has often talked about her paintings in terms of transitions, those associated with growing and ageing, as well as her attempt to mark a life’s milestones. These concerns are especially pronounced in her images of teenagers. The ways in which we inhabit or enact gender, accentuated during times of accelerated transition such as adolescence, are keenly present in a portrait of Herb, the son of a friend, whom Joffe has painted for a number of years, as well as her own daughter, Esme. In Faun, 2018, and Esme on the Blue Sofa, 2018, Joffe captures them at a poignant threshold, exuding both the vulnerability and coolness of youth.
Together, the works build upon complex narratives about connection, perception and representation. They alert us to the endless nuance of bodily expression; the myriad ways in which we reveal ourselves and communicate emotion, such as happiness, sadness, confidence, doubt or even distraction, whether we like it or not.
Published on the occasion of the exhibition at Victoria Miro Mayfair, a new book, The Front of My Face, features Joffe’s recent series of self-portraits in its entirety, accompanied by a new text by writer and critic Olivia Laing
About the artist
Born in 1969, Chantal Joffe lives and works in London. She holds an MA from the Royal College of Art and was awarded the Royal Academy Wollaston Prize in 2006. Joffe has exhibited nationally and internationally at institutional venues including The Lowry, Salford (2018); the National Museum of Iceland, Reykjavík (2016); National Portrait Gallery, London (2015); Jewish Museum, New York (2015); Jerwood Gallery, Hastings (2015); Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, Italy (2014–2015); Saatchi Gallery, London (2013–2014); MODEM, Hungary (2012); Mackintosh Museum, Glasgow (2012); Turner Contemporary, Margate (2011); 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). Joffe’s work has been featured in the recent exhibitions From Life at the Royal Academy of Arts, London (2018); ISelf Collection: The End of Love at the Whitechapel Gallery, London (2017); and Hope and Hazard: A Comedy of Eros, curated by Eric Fischl, at Hall Art Foundation, Reading, Vermont (2017).
Current and forthcoming institutional exhibitions featuring Chantal Joffe
Childhood Now
Compton Verney Art Gallery
16 March–16 June 2019
A number of works by Joffe feature in this group exhibition at Compton Verney, Warwickshire, which brings together paintings by three artists who depict different aspects of childhood. The selection by Joffe focuses on portrayals of her daughter, Esme, from birth to adolescence, in relation to her own changing role as a mother.
Cut and Paste: 400 Years of Collage
Scottish Gallery of Modern Art
29 June–27 October 2019
The first survey of its kind in Britain features works from the past 400 years. Joffe is represented by a number of collages related to her Crossrail commission for the new Elizabeth line station at Whitechapel.
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 -
Gallery Exhibition
11 April - 18 May 2019
Chantal Joffe
On view at Victoria Miro Mayfair are selected self-portraits from a series begun in January 2018, by the acclaimed British painter Chantal Joffe. Exhibition continues at Wharf Road, featuring large-scale... Victoria Miro Mayfair -
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 -
Publications
March 28 2019
Chantal Joffe: The Front of My Face
Chantal Joffe: The Front of My FaceNot currently available£ 20.000 in cart -
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