Tuesday, September 05, 2023

Venice - Victoria Miro - Chantal Joffe - The Eel - Exhibition - Opening


‘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.’
Olivia Laing
 
Victoria Miro 
 Chantal Joffe - The Eel
Paintings

At  the Victoria Miro gallery - until October 21 - The Eel is an exhibition of new paintings by Chantal Joffe, completed this summer during a residency with the gallery in VeniceOver 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: ‘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.’

Chantal Joffe
Calle al Ponte de Anzolo - Puro Lino - 2023


‘Esme dreaming on the vaporetto, chin up,
 rosy sunburned arms encircling 
a clear expanse of 
blue.’

Chantal Joffe - Esme on the Vaporetto - 2023


Esme Joffe
Chantal Joffe - Esme in Giudecca - 2023

Copyright Chantal Joffe Courtesy artist and Victoria Miro


‘These pictures are sloshing with time. Longueurs and languor, 
time running out or stuck on the dial. 
Days sweet as cream, 
a ferry to catch.’

Chantal Joffe - Blue Moon Spiaggia with Fruit - 2023

Copyright Chantal Joffe Courtesy artist and Victoria Miro

Chantal Joffe - Zattere - 2023


Andrew Huston, Karole Vail, Victoria Miro and Jane da Mosto

Copyright Chantal Joffe Courtesy artist and Victoria Miro
 

‘Too late at the beach and there’s a warning of a storm. 
The umbrella guy’s packing up and the sky’s so overcast 
the sand has gone green. 
Soft bodies like bread rolls in their beach clothes,
 baring white flesh.’

Chantal Joffe - Lido - 2023


Henrietta and Mario Codognato


‘Everything is very beautiful, 
a cannoli 
with a cherry on top.’

Chantal Joffe - Cannoli - 2023







 


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