+39 041 523 3799
Open: Tue-Sat 10am-1pm & 2pm-6pm

Il Capricorno, San Marco 1994, Calle Drio La Chiesa, 30124, Venice, Italy
Open: Tue-Sat 10am-1pm & 2pm-6pm

Visit    

Artist: Chantal Joffe

Victoria Miro presents The Eel, an exhibition of new paintings by Chantal Joffe completed this summer during a residency with the gallery in Venice.

Defined by its clarity, honesty and empathy, Chantal Joffe’s art is attuned to our awareness as both observers and observed beings, and is questioning, complex and emotionally rich. Over the summer, the artist has worked in the gallery’s studio in Venice, completing paintings – self-portraits; paintings of her daughter, Esme; still lifes – against the backdrop of the city at its high-season peak, a place of magnificence, stimulation, pleasure, excess and decay, endlessly toppling into one another.

The exhibition is accompanied by The Spoils, a new essay by Olivia Laing, who writes, ‘How can you paint all this? Put your body in the middle of it and hope to catch a flash as something vanishes or changes state. The only way to walk in the crowd is to submit to its sleepwalker pace, and maybe these pictures are a little like that. Lido, vaporetto, tramezzini on a plate. Everything is gorgeous, everything contains its secret evidence of death.’

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 venues including The Modern, Fort Worth, Texas, USA (2022); Koohouse Museum, Yangpyong, Korea (2022); The Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2021); The Foundling Museum, London, UK (2020); Arnolfini, Bristol, UK (2020); Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, UK (2019); Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK (2018); The Lowry, Salford, UK (2018); Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK (2018, 2017); National Museum of Iceland, Reykjavík (2016); National Portrait Gallery, London, UK (2015); Jewish Museum, New York, USA (2015); Jerwood Gallery, Hastings, UK (2015); Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, Italy (2014–2015); Saatchi Gallery, London, UK (2013–2014); MODEM, Hungary (2012); Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK (2011); Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, New York, USA (2009); MIMA Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, UK (2007); Galleri KB, Oslo, Norway (2005) and Bloomberg Space, London, UK (2004).

Her work is in numerous institutional and private collections, including the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, USA; Detroit Institute of Arts, USA; National Portrait Gallery, London, UK; and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA.

The artist’s work is currently on view at the Foundling Museum in London as part of the group exhibition Finding Family (17 March–27 August 2023) and, in October 2023, will feature in the group exhibition Real Families: Stories of Change at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (6 October 2023–7 January 2024).

Joffe has created a major public work for the Elizabeth line in London titled A Sunday Afternoon in Whitechapel, on view at Whitechapel Elizabeth line station.