Master Class: Chantal Joffe

Chantal Joffe will discuss her emotive and humorous approach to portraiture with writer and academic Dr Gemma Blackshaw, Professor of Art History at Plymouth University.

Joffe's large-scale portraits, mostly of women and children, express a strong psychological and emotional force and connection with a humorous touch. Using rough and dynamic brush-strokes Joffe brings the images to life, whilst often leaving the paint to dry and drip down the canvas.

Recent solo exhibitions have appeared at Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki and Victoria Miro, London, both 2016; Cheim & Read, New York, Jewish Museum, New York, and Jerwood Gallery, Hastings, all 2015.

Dr Gemma Blackshaw is Professor of Art History at Plymouth University. She specialises in Austrian art from the 19^th and early 20^th centuries, with a particular focus on that produced in Vienna around 1900.
Blackshaw has worked as a guest curator on a number of exhibitions including The Nakeds at Drawing Room London (2014), Facing the Modern: The Portrait in Vienna 1900 at the National Gallery London (2013) and Madness and Modernity: Mental Illness and the Visual Arts at the Wellcome Collection London and Wien Museum Vienna (2009-10). Her research has been supported by the AHRC, the British Academy, the Leverhulme Trust and the Wellcome Trust.
Recent and current research projects include an analysis of Egon Schiele’s life-drawings in the context of debates on art and pornography; and a study of the visual culture of central-European sanatoria for tuberculosis at the turn of the 19^th century.

This talk is part of the Testing Ground: Master Class programme, a week long intensive with leading international artists sharing their expertise with a small group of emerging artists from around the country. Led by artist Doug Fishbone, this year's artists are: Susan Hiller, Chantal Joffe, Heather Phillipson and Eve Sussman. Each of the artists, in addition to working with the emerging artists, will present a free evening lecture to the public about their work.

Master Class 2017 Public Lectures
1 February: Heather Phillipson
2 February: Chantal Joffe
4 February: Eve Sussman
5 February: Susan Hiller

FREE. Booking Recommended.