Joe Coffey

Home: Victoria BC
Title: Teagan II
Media: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 146 x 115 cm
Website: joecoffeyfineart.com

Biography

I was born in 1966 and grew up in Caledon, Ontario, just outside Toronto where four generations of my family had farmed. My earliest memories are of drawing and painting the people and animals around me. As a child I attended our old Catholic church with its strange Neo-Gothic design and its statues, and I found it both captivating and haunting. Current pop culture, news and the varied music that I listen to while painting are just a few things that fire my imagination and make working a highly engaging experience.
In choosing my subjects, I strive to portray a sculptured expressiveness, yet I also like to fix my subjects in a static or dynamic tension. I have a theatre background, in fact as a young man I believed I would become an actor, and so drama still informs my work. I have been an exhibiting artist for the past 20 years: my work hangs in commercial galleries in Toronto, Calgary and Victoria and in collections in Canada, the US, France, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. I now live and work from my studio in Victoria BC.