FIND OUT MORE Time is fragile in Chantal Joffe’s work, existing gently between layers of thickly You can listen to audio descriptions of the work and each text panel by scanning the applied oil and lingering amidst chalky remnants at the edges of drawings. Time QR code to the right. felt fragile too when making this exhibition – named after J.D. Salinger’s short story For Esmé - with Love and Squalor (1950) in which time hangs as heavy as the Pick up a copy of our free Family Guide which includes activities relating to the protagonist’s ‘enormous-faced chronographic-looking wristwatch’. exhibition or download creative activities to enjoy at home from our website. Created at great speed, Joffe’s work also bears reminders of the past, marks of time Take a look at our website to find out about upcoming events accompanying the indelibly tying her to painters who have gone before. Sometimes they are the subject exhibition including adult and and family workshops at www.arnolfini.org.uk of her work, such as the haunting presence of German modernist Paula Modersohn- Audio Becker. At others they are

Descriptions - with ESme For

Visit the Arnolfini bookshop to buy a copy of the exhibition’s accompanying Squalor and Love merely alluded to in subject publication Chantal Joffe: For Esme - with Love and Squalor, featuring newly matter; visual references to commissioned essays and interviews from art historian, writer and curator Professor Bonnard’s baths and Degas’ Dorothy Price, and writer Charlie Porter, a Turner Prize judge and contributor to The nudes. These threads are Financial Times and The Guardian. used by Joffe to situate herself within art’s histories, to anchor ABOUT ARNOLFINI herself in time.

Arnolfini is Bristol’s International Centre for Contemporary Arts located on the harbourside Explored alongside the passing in the heart of the city. Woven into the fabric of Bristol since 1961, Arnolfini is a pioneer of of time is Joffe’s movement interdisciplinary contemporary arts, presenting an ambitious, eclectic programme of visual art, between painting herself and performance, dance, film and music, carefully curated to appeal to a broad audience. painting others – here her daughter Esme. These two Housed in a prominent Grade II listed, accessible building on Bristol’s harbourside, Arnolfini subjects (mother and daughter) is an inspiring public space for contemporary arts and learning, greeting over half a million are woven throughout, often visitors each year and offering an innovative, inclusive and engaging experience for all. An depicted within the domestic internationally-renowned institution, throughout its history Arnolfini’s programme has welcomed interiors of their family home, artists from a wide variety of cultures and backgrounds, supporting and developing their work, Chantal Joffe seated at the kitchen table, investigating their influences and aspirations. perched upon an unmade bed, or cocooned in a bath’s Arnolfini has long-standing relationships with a variety of partners and celebrates the heritage warming water. and wide-reaching impact of the organisation through sharing a 60 year archive of exhibition slides, publications and artist book collection. In 2019, Arnolfini relaunched its major exhibition Moments of love and squalor programme with Still I Rise: Feminism, Gender and Resistance Act 3 and continues to build on flicker throughout. Self-portraits of Joffe torturously mark the breakdown of a the multicultural, diverse and inclusive ethos that has prevailed since its inception. Arnolfini relationship, and broken memories of a short-lived illness are pieced together in remains at the heart of the Bristol community, always mindful of founding director Jeremy Rees’ pastel and oil stick, together with cherished scenes of childhood. principle to ‘Enjoy Yourself’, inviting everyone to join in. Moving between media, each work is captured with the same urgency and deftness Arnolfini is an independent organisation, proud to be a part of the University of the West of of hand. Marks made in a day are revisited across the years. In this sense, time is England, Bristol, supported by Arts Council England and the Ashley Clinton Barker-Mills Trust, ingrained within Joffe’s process, which she likens to the immediacy of a claim made and run with the invaluable guidance of its Board of Trustees. by artist Gabriele Münter, suggesting: ‘my main difficulty was that I could not paint fast enough’. @arnolfiniarts @arnolfiniarts @arnolfiniarts

Chantal Joffe: For Esme – with Love and Squalor is curated by Chantal Joffe, Dorothy Price, Gemma Brace, and the Arnolfini, supported by Victoria Miro. GALLERY guide For ESme Love and Squalor Joffe paints those nearest to her, watching and witnessing the transformation of family and Two very different series of self-portraits are displayed here side-by-side, exploring both love friends across the years. Woven throughout these portraits is the recurring figure of Joffe’s and squalor and the act of care and being cared for. daughter, Esme. In the rougher, rawer drawings that make up Pictures of What I Did Not See it is Esme who Seen first as a newborn swaddled in blankets inEsme (First Painting), and later, defiantly takes on the role of carer, watching over her sick mother. This narrative series unfolds over awkward in Esme in White, Esme’s childhood is captured within layers of paint, measuring several days in which Joffe fell ill and traumatically lost recollection of events. The confusion out the breaths between childhood and adulthood. that ensued for Joffe can be felt through the animated, dense lines, ground into the paper’s surface by stubby sticks of oil pastel. A number of works in the exhibition (including Esme in White, Esme at Sixteen and Esme in a Grey T-Shirt) were painted during Joffe’s own ‘lockdown’. During this time she moved her In contrast (After Degas) is an ongoing series, which began in 2015. In its entirety, the series canal-side studio home, painting amidst the domestic churn of daily life, behind closed doors. comprises of over 100 drawings in which Joffe is both artist and model. Produced from photographs, the poses reference those depicted by French artist Edgar Degas (1834 – 1917) in Joffe often paints a work in a day, preferring to start afresh as opposed to labouring a subject his famed drawings of nude bathers. for days at a time. This practice has taken on added resonance in recent months when time slowed down and sped up in equal measure. Some of the most recent portraits of Esme were Swapping Degas’ changing settings for the Joffe family home, this ongoing series captures painted within days of her sixteenth birthday, days in which mother and daughter existed the caring act of bathing and dressing oneself. Unlike Degas’ voyeuristic gaze, Joffe crouches, alone, in lockdown. bends and contorts her body, unafraid of her own flesh. These intimate works bear a surprising lightness as flecks of chalk cling softly at the edges. Esme’s transformation across the works (and the years) is captured with a raw yet attentive honesty, the eye of both an artist and a mother. ABOUT CHANTAL JOFFE PAINTING SELF, PAINTING OTHERS Chantal Joffe was born in 1969 in St. Albans, Vermont, USA, and now lives and works in , Whether painting herself, or painting others – ‘the known and the unknown’ – Joffe still UK. She holds an MA from the manages to exist within each portrait, slipping and sliding between the role of artist and and was awarded the Royal Academy Wollaston subject, feeling out the lives of others. Prize in 2006.

Joffe’s own changing reflection has remained a constant in her work, creating punctuation Joffe will create a major new public work for the points across the years. She refers to the familiarity of these self-portraits as a ‘safe place’, Elizabeth line station at Whitechapel. Titled or a refuge from the difficult task of painting others. A Sunday Afternoon in Whitechapel, the work will be on view when the Crossrail station opens in 2021. Alongside several double portraits of Joffe and Esme, are some of these ‘safe places’, both monumental and miniature in scale; works such as Reading in the Bath I and III, and Self- Her recent solo exhibition titled Personal Feeling Portrait in the Bath (small), inspired by French artist Pierre Bonnard (1867 – 1947). Here, is the Main Thing at The Lowry, Salford in 2018, the intimacy of Joffe’s bathroom is both inviting and a rebuke, as we intrude upon a private presented works from across Joffe’s career and moment. alongside works by the German artist Paula Modersohn-Becker. In contrast, the pair of self-portraits in which Joffe sits awkwardly upon a green, iron chair in ’ Jardin de Tuileries, capture a rare glimpse of the artist seated outside, within a public Joffe is represented by , whose space; a fond memory that in the current climate feels like a lifetime ago. ethos remains consistent: to promote great and innovative artists and to nurture the best talent Memories and time hang particularly heavy within a selection of self-portraits painted over from the new generation of artists around the world. the course of a year, during which Joffe’s relationship with Esme’s father ended. Producing one a day, Joffe used a handheld, bandaged together mirror with which to capture her Image credits: Me and Esme in the Garden, 2020, oil on canvas, and Self-Portrait III, August, 2018, oil on board. reflection. The results reveal the changing face of pain, captured first within winter’s sombre Photography courtesy Victoria Miro © Chantal Joffe. light, and later softening as summer approaches and time slips by.