CHANTAL JOFFE: I REMEMBER

VICTORIA MIRO is pleased to present I Remember, a solo exhibition by Chantal Joffe.

November 14 – January 17, 2026

This evocative new series of large-scale paintings explores themes of memory, nostalgia and personal history to offer a reflective and deeply personal journey into the artist’s childhood and family life.

I Remember takes its title from Joe Brainard’s iconic memoir and is inspired by the late American writer’s poetic prompts that evoke the atmosphere and time of memories. Joffe’s paintings attempt to capture the fleeting yet enduring nature of memory and how it shapes our sense of self.

The exhibition is accompanied by a new text, entitled Time Transmission, by Olivia Laing.

‘Joe Brainard’s book always makes me list for myself the things I remember and the atmosphere and time that they conjure. These paintings are a sort of memoir of my childhood and of my family, an attempt at a kind of time travel. When I am making them, it’s almost as if I am existing in that past.’ – Chantal Joffe

‘The paintings in I Remember depict scenes from Joffe’s own childhood, mostly in America in the 1970s. Similar versions could no doubt be found in any family album of the period. Beach holidays, Halloween outfits (though few mothers could have achieved the creative heights of the three matryoshka dolls)…’

‘Something has definitively changed in the handling of paint. Joffe has allowed herself a new indefiniteness, a surrendering of precision and edge in favour of softness, saturation, blur.’ – Olivia Laing

‘The fierce vertical stripes on her polo neck and flares emphasise her determined individuation… As a portrait of maternal ambivalence, it’s hard to beat.’

‘These are works of maturity. What they convey is fluidity, uncertainty, curiosity. I’m not so sure, they seem to say. Is this how it was?’

– Olivia Laing