Royal Academician Chantal Joffe makes figurative paintings that tend to be either very small-scale or several feet high; she admits that she finds it hard to paint ‘in-between’. Addressing themes of motherhood, the history of portraiture and the passing of time, her work usually depicts women or girls together or as solo subjects. Joffe often uses photographs or images from magazines as a starting point, as well as painting larger-than-life self-portraits which are honest and arresting.

Joffe’s paintings feature subtle manipulation of form and scale, abstract elements such as patterns and stripes, and thick fluid brushstrokes combined with areas of translucent drips. In this intimate work, the artist has depicted her sister and niece in their doorway, huddled together for protection. It was reproduced on the cover of the RA Magazine in the summer of 2020, following an invitation from the editorial team for artists to respond to the relationship between art and the domestic world, in the context of the global lockdown period.

Joffe was awarded the Charles Wollaston Award for the most distinguished work in the Summer Exhibition in 2006. She has exhibited internationally at venues including the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, Whitechapel Gallery, London, National Portrait Gallery, London, Jerwood Gallery, Hastings and Turner Contemporary, Margate.

The Lowry, Salford recently presented a solo exhibition of her work in 2018. She will create a major new public work for the Elizabeth line station at Whitechapel which will be on view when the Crossrail station opens in 2021. In 2020, a solo exhibition will open at the Arnolfini in Bristol.

Joffe lives and works in London.