Two solo exhibitions by Joy Wolfenden Brown and Carlos Zapata, entitled Feather and Nepantla respectively, are coming to Anima Mundi, St Ives.
Joy Wolfenden Brown’s intimate oil paintings feel hauntingly familiar, possessing a raw emotional honesty. She captures fleeting fragments of memory, moments in time where the inherent vulnerability of the figures depicted, often in isolation, is palpable. These are lovingly yet spontaneously executed reflections on the human condition, which have an unnervingly, yet simultaneously comforting, unguarded quality.
Joy was born in Stamford, Lincolnshire, and currently lives in Bude, North Cornwall. She graduated from Leeds University then completed a post-graduate diploma in art therapy at Hertfordshire College of Art and Design, and worked as an art therapist for ten years before moving to Cornwall in 1999.
Since then she has had numerous 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, first prize at the Sherborne Open in 2007, the Evolver prize at the RWA in 2019, and the judges’ choice at the Chaiya Art Award 2023. Works were acquired by the Anthony Pettullo Outsider Art Collection, in Milwaukee, with further works held in collections worldwide.
Carlos Zapata’s idiosyncratic sculptures and installations deal with diverse challenging and potent themes, ranging from poverty and conflict to religion and race, yet, paradoxically, the overriding characteristics of the work are of empathy and compassion and a deep search for spirituality.
The two exhibitions open on 6th September and run until 19th October.
Anima Mundi | Street-an-Pol, St Ives TR26 2DS | animamundigallery.com/
