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: