Chantal Joffe and the lovely blue shirt
At the end of an an exhibition, do you do that thing where you choose the one painting you’d take home with you? The imaginary art buying game. This gorgeous painting is the work of artist Chantal Joffe. London-based, Vermont-born Joffe studied at the Royal College of Art in the 1990s. There’s currently an exhibition of her portraits on at the new Victoria Miro gallery in Mayfair. Paintings are of friends, family and a number of writers. I like the way Joffe portrays women. And I like a Lovely Blue Shirt. Hence, this is the painting I’d like to see on my bedroom wall, if money were no object and we had a bit more wall space at That’s Not My Age Mansions .
On working with oils, the 46-year-old artist says:
‘I’ve always been unfashionable; it seemed natural I should pick an unfashionable medium. Of course, I was very conscious of what other artists were doing – I wasn’t painting in a bubble – but it didn’t alarm me. I just loved painting so much that if there was a glimmer of life in it, I would carry on doing it.’
And here are some more Lovely Blue Shirts:
Read more about Joffe HERE, and she talks about her work HERE.
The Chantal Joffe exhibition continues until the 24 March 2016.
We play this game too. We came down to see the Matisse to Monet, Gardens through Art exhibition at the Royal Academy at the weekend and chose the William Nicholson portrait of Gertrude Jekyll’s gardening boots. Hope Monet wouldn’t be too insulted!