Joy Wolfenden Brown 'Woman'

J o y W o l f e n d e n B r o w n ‘ W o m a n ’

“Just as in the second part of a verse bad poets seek a thought to fit their rhyme, so in the second half of their lives people 

tend to become more anxious about finding actions, positions, relationships that fit those of their earlier lives, so that everything 

harmonizes quite well on the surface: but their lives are no longer ruled by a strong thought, and instead, in its place, comes 

the intention of finding a rhyme.” 

Friedrich Nietzsche, ‘Human, All Too Human’ 

The title of this exhibition is ‘Woman’. On the surface this 

is not a fist pumping exhibition about ‘feminism’, a subject 

where I concede that there would be at least 50 percent of 

the population better placed to write about it than I. Instead, 

this is an exhibition that reflects paintings unceasing capacity 

to plough beneath the authors personal surface in order to 

reveal universal truths. 

I started working with Joy Wolfenden Brown 12 years ago. 

I remember her first solo exhibition with my gallery vividly 

- her young sons running excitedly around the space as the 

enthusiastic and enthralled guests arrived to the preview. 

It was Joys first major exhibition and my second ever solo 

show. I remember it clearly as a time of innocence and 

optimism. My world and my career have changed a great 

deal since then - things are now ‘much more grown up’, 

and those impish children of Joy’s have also grown in to fine 

young men. Wow - that all happened fast! 

Bertrand Russell wrote in ‘The Problems of Philosophy’; 

“Some care is needed in using Descartes’ argument. ‘I think, 

therefore I am’ says rather more than is strictly certain. It 

might seem as though we are quite sure of being the same 

person to-day as we were yesterday, and this is no doubt 

true in some sense. But the real ‘Self ’ is as hard to arrive at 

as the real table, and does not seem to have that absolute, 

convincing certainty that belongs to particular experiences.” 

I ask Joy Wolfenden Brown some way through making this 

exhibition how she is feeling about the work that she is 

making. She tells me how some of the figures remain frozen, 

a record of her standing firm but also struggling to move 

forward in to the uncertainty of the next era, but she notes 

a tentative blossoming. ‘A winter flowering’ she describes it 

as. I am pleased to hear of this personal florescence. 

From the first moment I saw Joy’s work all those years ago, I 

recognised the rarest of gifts - a complete inability to conceal 

what was deeply felt. Even the thinly veiled almost crude 

brush strokes displayed a virtuosity but didn’t hide behind 

the sort of mannered techniques we are used to seeing in 

illusionistic painting, nor did they hide behind the heaviness 

of the material. They were instant. Like a breath. These works 

were the epitome of that cliched holy grail - these works 

were ‘honest’. And over the years, if anything, that delicate 

veil has grown thinner, even if in many ways the protective 

armour has grown harder, as is its tendency. 

Rainer Maria Rilke once wrote “Have patience with 

everything that remains unsolved in your heart… live in the 

question.” These paintings yield to these sentiments claiming 

and affirming the qualities of gentleness, love, vulnerability, 

ageing, peace, sadness, imperfection, truth and awkwardness. 

With that our layers peal away. Reminded of what it is to be 

an individual, in my case a man and in Joy’s case a woman; 

human beings, in our state of vulnerability and isolation 

still yearning for glory. Not one dimensional as reflected 

through the contemporary lense of improbable fortitude 

and glossy flawlessness of the mass media ideal. As Joy says 

‘‘We lose sight of each other when we look at the mass. 

Every life is significant, each person carrying with them their 

own story. My paintings record one life, echo one heart and 

trace one souls journey.” 

We live in strange times, of faceless communication and 

mounting fear of others - one that many see as a path of 

worrying de-humanisation. I love these paintings because 

they remind us of something of profound importance - that 

when we dare to reveal ourselves to others, a gift is being 

held out. We must not let the curtains block out the light. 

We must not concern ourselves with whether or not the 

‘other’ wishes to or is ready to receive that gift. Everyone, 

however imperfect, is there to be loved. A tricky complex 

message, of course, but I am glad we have an artist here 

prepared to lead by humble, nervous but magnificent 

example. What more can one person do? 

Joseph Clarke . 2016 

2

Young Woman 

oil on board . 69 x 61 cm 

3

Dark Corners and Open Doors 

oil on paper . 18 x 18 cm 

4

The Cur tain 


5

Spirit 

oil on paper . 17.5 x 17 cm 

6

The Healing 

oil on paper . 13 x 9.5 cm 

7

What’s Left? 

I used to wait for flowers, 

my pleasure reposed on them. 

Now I like plants before they get to the blossom. 

Leafy ones- foxgloves, comfrey, delphiniums - 

fleshy tiers of strong leaves pushing up 

into air grown daily lighter and more sheened 

with bright dust like the eyeshadow 

that tall young woman in the bookshop wears, 

its shimmer and crumble on her white lids. 

The washing sways on the line, the sparrows pull 

at the heaps of drying weeds that I’ve left around. 

Perhaps this is middle age. Untidy, unfinished, 

knowing there’ll never be time now to finish, 

liking the plants - their strong lives - 

not caring about flowers, sitting in weeds 

to write things down, look at things, 

watching the sway of shirts on the line, 

the cloth filtering light, 

I know more or less 

how to live my life now, 

But I want to know how to live what’s left 

with my eyes open and my hands open; 

I want to stand at the door in the rain 

listening, sniffing, gaping. 

Fearful and joyous, 

like an idiot before God. 

by Kerrie Hardie 

Blue Flowers 


8

9

The Dressing Table Mirror 


10

A Winter Flowering 

oil on paper . 12.5 x 11.5 cm 

11

Teeth and Pearls 


12

Anemones 


13

14

Waiting for Flowers 

oil on board . 122 x 69.5 cm 

15

No Flowers 

oil on paper . 26.5 x 21.5 cm 

16

What’s Left 


17

Flower Arranger 


18

The Yielding 


19

Freesias 

oil on board . 21 x 29.5 cm 

20

The Horse 

oil on board . 20.5 x 29.5 cm 

21

Awkward Gestures 


22

The Echoing Sea 


23

Spirit 


24

The Healing 


25

A Gentle Path 


26

One Morning 


27

The Bark 


28

The Request 


29

The Sea 


30

31

Carried 


32

The Playroom 


33

34

The Scissors 

oil on board . 61.5 x 69 cm 

35

The Speaker 


36

Three Girls 


37

Winter Flowering 

oil on canvas . 122 x 76.5 cm 

38

39

Growing Up 

oil on canvas . 20.5 x 62.5 cm 

40

Woman 

oil on canvas . 20.5 x 20.5 cm 

41

Woman 

oil on canvas . 20.5 x 105 cm 

42

43

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The Grebo Other & Petard Room 

oil, acr ylic, spray paint oil on board linen .. 170 84 x x 101.5 270 cm 

45

Joy Wolfenden Brown was born in Stamford, Lincolnshire, studied for her degree at Leeds University and 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 

Bude in Cornwall in 1999. Wolfenden Brown has had a number of sell out shows and was the First Prize Winner in The National 

Open Art Competition, 2012. She was also awarded the Somerville Gallery painting prize in 2003 and first prizewinner at the 

Sherborne Open in 2007. Her work was acquired for permanent exhibition at The Anthony Pettullo Outsider Art Collection in 

Milwaukee and she is in numerous private art collections worldwide. 

CV 

Born in 1961 Stamford Lincolnshire. Living in Cornwall. 

EDUCATION 

1981 - 84 Degree, Bretton Hall College / Leeds University 

1985 - 86 Post Grad Diploma, Art Therapy, Hertfordshire College of 

Art & Design 

2007 Brief Visitor, Goldfish, Penzance 

New Paintings, Beaux Arts, Bath 

2008 Simple Truths, Goldfish, Penzance 

2009 Sparrow, Beaux Arts, Bath 

2010 The Meeting Place, Millennium, St. Ives 

2011 Treasure, Beaux Arts, Bath 

2012 The Still Point, Millennium, St. Ives 

2014 Song from the Garden, Millennium, St. Ives 

2015 Home, Beaux Arts, Bath 

2016 Woman, Anima-Mundi 

SELECTED BIOGRAPHY 

1982 - 84 Stanley Royd Mental Health Hospital, Wakefield – assisting in 

Art Therapy department 

1983 - 84 M.I.N.D. Barnsley - volunteer 

1984 - 85 Brookside Young People’s Unit, Goodmayes Mental Health 

Hospital, Essex. - full time as part of a multi-disciplinary team 

in a psychodynamically run residential therapy unit. 

1986 - 89 Ingledene, Church of England Children’s Society, Altrincham, 

Cheshire. - Full time Senior Art Therapist / Social Worker. 

1989 - 93 Stockport Health Authority Community and residential 

learning disability/mental health teams - Full time Art Therapist. 

1995 Full time Mum to two boys. 

1999 Moved to Bude, Cornwall (area where grandparents / mother 

had lived). 

2000 Started to paint again 

SOLO EXHIBITIONS 

2003 Somerville Gallery, Plymouth 

2004 Inside Out, Goldfish, Penzance 

2005 Letting Go, Goldfish, Penzance 

2006 Still Waters, Goldfish, Penzance 

SELECTED MIXED EXHIBITIONS 

2002 - 03 South West Academy, Exeter Phoenix (Awarded Somerville 

Gallery painting prize) 

2006 Work acquired for permanent exhibition at The Pettullo 

Outsider & Self Taught Art Collection, Milwaukee, USA 

2007 Art Now Cornwall?, Goldfish, Penzance 

Margins, Sherborne Open 07 - Awarded First Prize Winner 

Move, Goldfish at Vyner Street, Lime Wharf, London 

2008 The Figure Show, Jill George Gallery, London 

2009 Mixed Winter Exhibition, Millennium, St. Ives 

The Figure Show, Jill George Gallery, London 

Chichester Painting Prize (Shorlisted) 


The House of Fairy Tales, Millennium, St. Ives 


2012 The National Open Art Competition (First Prize Winner): 

Minerva Theatre, Chichester 

The Princes Drawing Rooms, London 

Pallant House, Chichester 

Mixed Winter Exhibition, Millennium, St. Ives 

2013 Mixed Winter, Millennium 

2014 Mixed Winter, Millennium 

2015 Mixed Winter, Anima-Mundi 

46

Awkward Gifts 


47

La La La, Me Me Me 


48

Published by Anima-Mundi to coincide with the exhibition ‘Woman’ by Joy Wolfenden Brown 

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or 

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Publication produced by Impact Printing Services (www.impactprintingservices.co.uk) 

Street-an-Pol . St. Ives . Cornwall . Tel: 01736 793121 . Email: mail@anima-mundi.co.uk . www.anima-mundi.co.uk

Joy Wolfenden Brown 'Woman'

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