Chantal Joffe (B. 1969)

Painted in 1995, shortly after Chantal Joffe graduated from the Royal College of Art with an MA in painting, Untitled is an early example of her acclaimed figurative practice. Working from a wide variety of source material, including family photographs, fashion magazines and advertising, the London-based artist paints expressive portraits of women and children, characterised by bold brushwork, vivid colours and deliberate distortions in scale and perspective. ‘I think about women and their thoughts and ideas, and I suppose when I’m painting them I’m getting to be them, in a sense’, she has explained. ‘… I really love painting women. Their bodies, their clothes – it all interests me’ (C. Joffe, quoted in interview with S, McCartney, Interview Magazine, http:/www.interviewmagazine.com/fashion/chantal-joffe/#page2, [accessed 6 September 2014]). Joffe has exhibited internationally in her career, the most recent museum show at the National Portrait Gallery, London and currently she has a solo exhibition at her London gallery, Victoria Miro.