BY DAVID LENNAM | PHOTOS BY JEFFREY BOSDET
Artist Joe Coffey brings both discipline and whimsy to his vast canvases.
They’re what the artist calls “a theatrical whimsy.”
Joe Coffey’s enormous oil paintings feature animals. Everyday animals: cows, horses, dogs, goats, maybe an owl. More playful than comical, unsentimental, dignified.
“They’re removed from their context,” he explains. “They’re kind of like actors and I’m a casting director.”
It’s an apt description of his signature works, some by commission, the rest his own choices — his originals, as he calls them. Almost always animals, anyway. There’s the odd human. But Coffey doesn’t fancy himself a portraitist in the strict sense of the word.
“Luckily, the animal subjects and the way I paint them in these theatrical poses endlessly fascinates me,” he says. “There’s always a new theatrical tableau to create. And that’s found a market … I don’t think I’m an actual portrait artist. I’ve just been fortunate that I can do commissions for people who want what looks like one of my originals, so if they want a painting of their horse or their dog they know I’m not going to paint them in a field with trees. I’m going to at least try and put my own spin on it.”
Coffey was once told his work was kind of like a wax effigy come to life. He liked that.
“It totally encapsulates what I’m trying to do,” he says. “On the one hand I’m trying to create real life, but going on in my brain, I’m fascinated by textures. It kind of looks like a sculpture that I’ve painted — a realist sculpture.”
“On the one hand I’m trying to create real life, but going on in my brain, I’m fascinated by textures. It kind of looks like a sculpture that I’ve painted — a realist sculpture.”
His commission work — and there’s a lineup to have him paint your pet (or famous racehorse) — is about making a living. The rest is typical of what will be hanging at Madrona Gallery’s Deck the Walls show next month, a showcase of several brand new pieces.
Madrona’s owner/director Michael Warren says Coffey is in demand all over North America.
“For some of his best work, we see it go as soon as we announce it,” he says. “That’s pretty validating when an artist can drop a painting off at the gallery and we do a couple of phone calls or a quick email and then it just gets snapped up.”
Warren is impressed with the way Coffey has married a traditional level of high realism with irreverent, contemporary art.
“It really livens it up in a way I find so engaging and adds a whole other dimension to the work. He’s established a really unique niche for himself with his style of wildlife painting,” says Warren. “It’s just so beautifully executed.”
Enjoying the Process
Because his technique is so classical, it seems preposterous that Coffey is self-taught. More so that he’s colour blind, particularly to shades that are pastels.
“I worked for a designer tile company during the early ’90s when things were pastel,” says Coffey, “and I had to memorize the samples, what position they were in. Grey looked exactly like green to me.”
It’s a hindrance more than a handicap, though it kept him out of art school. Trying to take a night course about colour theory at Emily Carr University of Art + Design, he was rebuffed after mentioning his colour blindness.
“I paint what I see and you obviously intellectualize it. I do have some colour theory that I’ve learned so I know this colour goes with this and you can make this, but other times you just paint what you see. I remember Michael [Warren] saying to me, ‘I wouldn’t have thought you could use blue like that in a shadow, but it works.’ ”
Coffey’s affinity for animals, especially farm critters, came from his upbringing in rural, small-town Ontario, part of the 4-H set. He shovelled muck at a horse farm, joined Pony Club and donned breeches for the strict form and style of equitation competition.
“Honestly, I could just sit quietly with our dog or with the pigs. I remember on a sunny afternoon, just sitting with the sows and the boars and just feeling totally at ease.”
You may have seen him out on one of his long, afternoon walks. That’s the after-work artist. All morning, the 58-year-old Coffey has shuttered himself in his studio like a hermit, his blood infused with some tincture of iron discipline, an artist’s discipline. The kind of discipline Virginia Woolf wrote about in her diaries.
“I’m obsessed with Virginia Woolf. I’m obsessed with her diaries,” Coffey admits with some pride; he’s read the five substantial volumes six times. “It’s the writer discipline. I find that inspiring. Just her work ethic.”
Adhering to the kind of strict schedule Woolf observed (she was rigid about keeping the undisrupted rhythm of her writing routine and became frustrated if she was unable to impose that on herself), Coffey rises early and addresses the canvas.
“I am a morning person. That’s when I paint, then I go out for my walk every day. That’s what she did,” he says. “I kind of have this happy, monk-like life. Honestly, I cannot paint well if I’m not enjoying the process.”
Warren suggests that an artist is someone who can present an idea, or a thought, visually, that you couldn’t experience in any other way.
“Joe brings that really, really well, even if it’s just a sense of sheer beauty and inquisitiveness or the ability to knock a viewer off kilter with combining high realism with contemporary art,” says Warren. “And I think that that’s what has really allowed him to have such a successful career.”
For more stories about Victoria’s vibrant arts scene, check out: “Bringing the Cuban Fire: We hit the high notes with jazz trumpeter Miguelito Valdés,” where Miguelito fuses Cuban passion with West Coast flair, or dive into “Spreading Hope: A mural project by Paul Archer,” showcasing how Paul Archer’s bold murals are infusing the city’s streets with colour and optimism.