Chantal Joffe

I’ve been looking into painters who often paints expressively and doesn’t take a lot of time worrying about their work or the details. An example of this is Chantal Joffe, who said, “I don’t want to make pretty paintings. I’m after an honest, almost brutal quality. That’s why I love to paint myself.” I’ve been experimenting with this style by painting abstract and colourful under painting as the first layer to show through the skin colours I’d be using later on. Example of her work are seen below;

This is where my experimenting with this style of painting is currently at;

I used a lot of red under-layer paint for the first piece, green for the middle piece and blue and green for the last, in quick strokes with a lot of texture by using thick paint. I decided to use red for the female reproductive system piece because I wanted it to come through the black, as if it’s seeping blood and act as a metaphor for inequality, such as the tampon tax, for example, as well as the argument of how women are too ‘hormonal’ to be responsible/in power. I also added thorns to the piece to symbolise women being fierce but their bodies and anatomy is still beautiful, like a rose. I’ve been wanting to use flower/nature imagery for a while, therefore I’m very happy with this piece.

The female figures have green paint showing through the ‘skin’, which is also meant to symbolise how women’s bodies are totally natural and not at all obscene. I decided to make two women; one showing the front, standing upright with her arms positioned in almost a hard-working, powerful way on her hips and a woman’s back, but slightly bending with a bit of weight on her. The two bodies are meant to symbolise the link between all women and how all are very capable of being strong and fierce. I wanted to add more nature into the piece for it to all tie together well, therefore I opened up the front-facing woman’s stomach and revealed flowers where her reproductive system would be, to once again show that her body is natural and fierce. This is the finished piece:

Documentation and Contextualisation

Documentation

Sketchbook Work

Side project on landscapes

Where the development of my work is currently at.

Material Projects and what I learnt from them.

My most developed piece

Inside/Outside: Shaped Paintings and Feminism

Life Drawing: Looking at Tracey Emin

Concertopia

Library Research Project

Shaped Paintings

Today, Tomorrow, Yesterday, September

Contextualisation

Dotty Attie

Today, Tomorrow, Yesterday, September: John Stezaker

John Coplans, ‘Hands Holding Feet’, 1985

Life Drawing: Looking at Tracey Emin

Contextualisation for Shaped Paintings

Trip to London

Concertopia: Contextualisation

Library Research Project

Chantal Joffe

Trump protest and how it’ll influence my work

Field

Maes Cymraeg

Lights, Camera, Action! Field Project

Field group work: Fairytales, Sexual Assault and Trump.

Sketchbook work

My sketchbook drawings and paintings are very much the most important part of the development of my work as it’s where all of my ideas go. I prefer to use pens, pencils and watercolour paint to generate my ideas because they offer the quickest way to get the ideas down.

Below are the monoprints I made with Tracey Emin in mind, focusing on her feminist work. I decided to look into the issue of consent and how many people don’t realise what receiving consent really is. I used models from magazines as the women in the drawings to emphasise how what a woman is wearing doesn’t give consent to anything. I used Tracey Emin’s drawings of the human body here as a starting point, as well as her use of text to strengthen the piece and its message. I used text such as, “silence is a no”, which describes how an unconscious person can’t consent. I also looked into Yazidi women who are fighting a war against ISIS because they are currently targeted by them to be raped and killed. I found images of two women in this fight and made monoprints which I believe are powerful because of their background stories.

I also made use of three canvases I had to make sketchbook related work, but more detailed and something in between my sketchbook drawings and shaped paintings, which show the development of my work more clearly. I used collage, text and acrylic to create these political pieces that are about society and cosmetic companies, women’s opinions and women’s magazines.

These are my quick sketches and drawings that I’ve made that might become further developed work, such as shaped paintings, in the near future. I prefer to create as many different drawings and shapes before creating too much developed work because I change my mind a lot and I don’t want the work to not fit well together.

I based a lot of these drawings on the female body and how we are primarily the ones who are shamed for showing it. What inspired me to make these drawings were Piers Morgan’s tweets; “Here’s @emrata deliberately flashing her knickers on #globes red carpet. Another triumph for feminist empowerment!”. What she’s advocating is exactly what feminism is; the right of choice and freedom to do whatever you please with your body because bodies aren’t obscene and it’s not 1805. He’s also tweeted about her that she must “secretly fancy” him after similarly judging a naked photoshoot she had, which is indeed very creepy. I decided to draw women posing and taking pictures of themselves, which many people, particularly men, say they “hate” over social media. However, I and many other women don’t take pictures of myself to get an approval, as it simply shows that we’re perhaps in a good mood, or excited about something, not that they should even have an explanation.

I also experimented with lace and nature together in my sketchbook, as nature (flowers, trees, etc) are commonly used as metaphors for the female body, which then adds a seductive nature to the leaves and flowers I collected. Georgia O’Keeffe is who inspired me to look into nature to connect with the female body, which then lead to drawings of women lying down, hugging flowers and plants, in their underwear for. This idea was mostly from how people relax in comfortable clothing such as underwear, and usually alone, because a relaxed, comfortable state isn’t deemed appropriate in public, no matter how many times a woman will be compared to a very natural and naked flower.

An example of O’Keeffe’s work;