JOY WOLFENDEN BROWN
EXHIBITION DATES : In person and online from 2/9 – 17/10/2022
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PREFACE :
Anima Mundi are proud to present ‘Sanctum’, an extraordinarily intimate solo exhibition by Joy Wolfenden Brown which will be shown on floors 1 & 3 of the gallery.
‘Sanctum’ is Wolfenden Brown’s seventh solo exhibition at Anima Mundi and is imbued with the artists renowned sensitivity to absorb the physical and metaphysical world that surrounds and precedes the present moment. Evocations of fortitude combine with vulnerability, resting beneath an ethereally layered and unmannered, yet luminous oily surface. The ritualistic painting process flows continuously from the artists’ subconscious, as a visual reflection of deeply felt experience and emotion, simultaneously confronting whilst offering the viewer comfort through the sharing of a profound and fragile truth.Figures often appear awkward, perhaps guarded, as if attempting to close the breach created through the wide eyed protagonist, offering a unique and singular window in to the soul of the subject, the artist and in turn, ourselves.
“In a field
I am the absence
of field ”
ONLINE CATALOGUE :
ARTIST STATEMENT :
I have been blessed with a small space in which I am free to paint.
During the course of this body of work it has never been far from my heart that there are places on this earth where even the most sacred and private thoughts and prayers are deemed punishable and have to remain hidden.
When finding words to accompany a body of paintings there is a familiar feeling of resistance as if all the elements or fragments which have eventually settled and found a home within the painting are now required to wake up and re arrange themselves in order to be translated. The safe but sometimes complex, unconscious journey from heart to painting is now asked to re trace it’s steps via a route it has been avoiding!...
During the course of this body of work it has never been far from my heart that there are places on this earth where even the most sacred and private thoughts and prayers are deemed punishable and have to remain hidden.
When finding words to accompany a body of paintings there is a familiar feeling of resistance as if all the elements or fragments which have eventually settled and found a home within the painting are now required to wake up and re arrange themselves in order to be translated. The safe but sometimes complex, unconscious journey from heart to painting is now asked to re trace it’s steps via a route it has been avoiding!...
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There are times in our lives when the veil between ourselves and the core of our being becomes almost transparent and at other times this is much less the case. There are times of spaciousness and also of being hemmed in and both of these can offer a place for fruitfulness but also fragility and risk.
Whilst the figure in my paintings is often held stationary within the picture frame, the process of reaching that point of stillness (albeit maybe an awkward, fragile, expectant, sometimes restful stillness) can be more kinetic with an amount of placement, displacement and re placement along the way. This almost compulsive repetition seems to echo a sense of mystery at the figure’s awkward presence in her worldly or
other-worldly surrounds. As she stands vigil by a growing plant, is lost within the hemming of a floral surround, sits in an ancient candlelit room or kneels in private thought or prayer in a small curtained space, it could be seen as a quest to feel safe, at ease, whole, at home. Her hope of a Sanctum.
Joy Wolfenden Brown, 2022
3D VIRTUAL TOUR (CLICK TO VIEW) :
EXHIBITION ARTWORKS (CLICK FOR FULL DETAILS) :
BIOGRAPHY :
Joy Wolfenden Brown is a British artist born in Stamford, Lincolnshire in 1961. She currently lives in Bude, North Cornwall. Wolfenden Brown graduated from Leeds University then completed a post-graduate diploma in Art Therapy at Hertfordshire College of Art & Design. She worked as an art therapist for ten years before moving to Cornwall in 1999. Wolfenden Brown has had a number of sell out solo exhibitions and was the First Prize Winner in The National Open Art Competition, 2012. She was also awarded the Somerville Gallery painting prize in 2003, was first prize winner at the Sherborne Open in 2007 and won the Evolver Prize at the Royal West of England Academy in 2019. Works were acquired by the Anthony Pettullo Outsider Art Collection in Milwaukee with further works held in collections worldwide. Wolfenden Brown has exhibited internationally and is represented by Anima Mundi.
