CHANTAL JOFFE

Early Years

Chantal Joffe’s parents met at an anti-apartheid protest in South Africa, but she was born in 1969 in St Albans, Vermont. The family led a peripatetic life, living in the former Yugoslavia for a while; however, by the time they moved to England in the 1980s, her parents were divorced. Joffe took her foundation course at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts (1987–1988), following this with a BA in fine art at Glasgow School of Art (1988–1991) and an MA in fine art from the Royal College of Art in London (1992–1994).

Chantal Joffe: Artworks

Joffe’s early, small-scale works drew inspiration from pornographic imagery—she said in 2009 that as well as being interested in the politics of pornography, she had wanted to paint nudes. In 1996 these works were selected for Tate’s New Contemporaries exhibition, which propelled her into the public eye. However, after becoming pregnant with her daughter, her focus changed to motherhood and self-portraiture, depicting the emotions and the physicality that are part of becoming a mother.

• 2004’s Snowy Car shows us a female figure sitting on a car, one bare leg raised with a bent knee. The oil paint drips down the painting, across the woman’s arms and legs, suggesting at first glance a bloodied scene.
• In Looking Towards Bexhill (2016), Joffe paints herself and her daughter Esme (a frequent subject of her paintings) on the beach in St Leonard’s. The intensely personal composition, based on a photograph, was taken just after Joffe and Esme had returned from a trip to America, and the picture explores the tension between mother and daughter.
• The artworks in 2025’s The Prince exhibition saw Joffe exploring a new aspect of humanity— masculinity—and considering “what it is to paint someone who’s different from yourself”. Large-scale oil-on-board artworks included her partner and a friend, Richard and Harun (2024) and her partner captured naked, Richard in the Bath (2024), as well as images of a family friend’s son and other male acquaintances. “Men could see paintings of men which weren’t a cliché of masculinity,” she said.
• Joffe’s 2026 exhibition I Remember saw her uncovering childhood memories and considering the role her mother played in the family. In Backyard (2025), Joffe’s mum sits on one side of a bench table, seemingly distracted, Joffe, her siblings and dad on the other. From the same series, Jasna (2025) depicts Joffe’s mum, alone at one end of a sofa while Joffe and her siblings sit on the knee of a younger woman at the other. The younger woman represents someone her father slept with.

Chantal Joffe: Select Exhibitions

Select Solo Exhibitions

• I Remember, Victoria Miro, London (2025)
• The Prince, Newlyn Art Gallery (2025)
• The Dog’s Birthday, Skarstedt Gallery, Paris (2025)
• Chantal Joffe: My dearest dust, Skarstedt Gallery, New York City (2024)
• Chantal Joffe: The Eel, Victoria Miro, Venice (2023)
• Chantal Joffe: Family Lexicon, Koohouse Museum, Yangpyong (2022)
• Chantal Joffe, Lehmann Maupin, Beijing (2021)
• Chantal Joffe | For Esme—With Love and Squalor, Arnolfini, Bristol (2020)
• Chantal Joffe: Teenagers, Lehmann Maupin, Seoul (2020)
• Chantal Joffe, Victoria Miro, London (2019)
• Personal Feeling is the Main Thing—Chantal Joffe, The Lowry, Salford (2018)
• Chantal Joffe: Pastels, Victoria Miro, Venice (2018)
• Night Self Portraits, Cheim & Read, New York City (2015)
• Chantal Joffe: Beside the Seaside, Jerwood Gallery, Hastings (2015)
• Monica de Cardenas, Milan (2008)
• Regon Project, Los Angeles (2006)
• Victoria Miro, London (2003)
• Il Capricorno, Venice (2000)
• Feigen Contemporary, New York City (1999)

Select Group Exhibitions

• Artists for Kettle’s Yard, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge (2026)
• Victoria Miro: 40 Years, Victoria Miro, London (2025) (and Venice)
• Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood, Arnolfini, Bristol (2024) (and touring)
• Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London (2023)
• Women Painting Women, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (2022)
• Mother!, Louisiana, Humlebaek (2021) (and touring)
• Cut and Paste: 400 Years of Collage, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (2019)
• First Light: A Decade of Collecting at the ICA, ICA Boston (2016)
• Friendship Portraits: Chantal Joffe and Ishbel Myerscough, National Portrait Gallery, London (2015)
• To Have a Voice, Mackintosh Museum, Glasgow (2012)
• A Room of Her Own, McClain Gallery, Houston (2009)
• London Calling, Galleri KB, Oslo (2005)
• Girl, The New Art Gallery, Walsall (2000)
• Chantal Joffe and Dawn Mellor, Victoria Miro, London (1997)

Further Reading

• Artist profile page at Victoria Miro
• Artist profile page at Lehmann Maupin
• 2025 interview in Vogue
• __2025 interview with The Wick

Chantal Joffe FAQs

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