In this rare artistic collaboration, the photographer Miles Aldridge invited contemporary painter Chantal Joffe to explore the theme of ‘the artist and model’. The resulting works in colour and black and white photographs, ink and pencil drawings and paintings in watercolour and oils create a fascinatingly obsessive and emotional study of one woman: the model Kristen McMenamy.
Aldridge and Joffe worked in tandem in Joffe's East London studio, taking turns to lead and follow. While Joffe favoured softer, more traditional life-model positions, Aldridge encouraged Kristen to adopt a more erotic stance, characteristic of the photographic style for which he is famous.
Joffe's expressive drawings as well as works in oils and watercolours, which frequently drip, smudge and blur, capture Kristen at ease, in the contemplative mode of a life-model relaxing into a long pose; the accompanying black and white images taken by Aldridge during those sessions pay homage to that naturalism.
