Joy Wolfenden Brown 'Poem'

Joy Wolfenden Brown 

Poem

My life is not this steeply sloping hour, 

in which you see me hurrying. 

Much stands behind me; 

I stand before like it like a tree; 

I am only one of many mouths 

and at that, the one that will be still the soonest. 

I am the rest between the notes, 

which are somehow always in discord 

because death’s note wants to climb over – 

but in the dark interval reconciled, 

they stay there trembling. 

And the song goes on, beautiful. 

Rainer Maria Rilke

‘Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust’ 

A text by Dr Richard Davey, 2020 

There comes a time when we all stand by 

the open grave, clumps of earth held in our 

hand staining our fingers, our unfocused 

eyes staring into the infinite abyss. Earth to 

earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. As these 

poignant, bittersweet words are spoken, the 

soil drops like tears, falling into the void from 

where it has come. Earth returns to earth, a 

reminder of our fragile physicality. In our 

life we stand on the spinning ground, in our 

death we are enfolded in it. These words 

form an ending that is also a beginning. As 

granular soil disappears into the darkness 

of solid earth and words disperse into the 

aether, they remind us that our solidity is 

an illusion, our edges an impossibility. We 

are an energy field of atoms, a momentary 

coagulation of matter caught in the gravity 

field of this Earth. 

The painter takes ground up earth, loose 

dust particles of pigment and binds it into 

coagulated matter that solidifies on the paper 

surface, each mark an arrested gesture, a 

frozen moment of bodily flow. Even in our 

stillness there is infinitesimal movement, 

a breathing in and a breathing out, the 

gentle rise and fall of the diaphragm, our 

edges dissolving as we inhale the void: 

earth, air, ashes, dust, our body, all floating 

in an atomic sea of potential creation, 

remembering in anticipation what will come; 

time past, present and future bound together 

in fragile forms. 

But in-between the reuniting of earth and 

earth, ashes and ashes, dust and dust there 

is the ‘to’, two letters holding the space 

between, the gap where we exist. Two letters 

that contain the whole journey of life, a brief 

coalescence of particles, where ashes dance 

and dust floats and we exist for a short 

moment of time. 

Joy Wolfenden Brown’s paintings allow us 

to glimpse the ‘to’. Her figures are caught in 

the space between, suspended in momentary 

stasis, a reminder that we are a breath of 

stardust; a fleeting, fragile form caught like 

condensation on a window; a passing shadow 

crossing the earth, leaving behind the subtle 

imprint of our passing. They confront us with 

the transience of the ‘to’, their stares inviting 

us to fall again into the void, where we find 

an emptiness full of presence. We reach out 

to hold them, but they dissipate before our 

gaze, evaporating into an evanescent mist of 

exquisite memory. They appear before us, 

kneeling, staring, standing, sitting; gentle 

souls too fragile to be grasped, teasing us 

like a half-remembered whisper, or a tender 

annunciation of invisible presence. 

These figures are held in delicate spaces 

where what was solid has dissolved into 

shimmering clouds of immateriality and where 

colourful prisms surround them in a waterfall 

of invisible light. In this stillness her figures 

find quiet communion with nature, the deep 

interconnectedness of the earth’s shalom, 

a peace that transcends time and space, 

heaven and earth, life and death pulling 

us into an eternity where we are all one. 

Richard Davey is an internationally published 

author, curator and member of the International 

‘Association of Art Critics’. He was a judge 

of the John Moores Painting Prize 2016 and 

recently wrote the major exhibition publication 

for Anselm Kiefer’s solo exhibition at the Royal 

Academy of Arts, in 2014 alongside the 2015 

and 2016 ‘RA Summer Exhibition’ catalogues. 

2

Preface 

53

4

Leaded Light (I) 

oil on paper, 96.5 x 61 cm 

5

Leaded Light (II) 

oil on paper, 102 x 69 cm 

6

7

Cold Prayer 

8 

oil on paper, 25.5 x 15 cm

Night Song 

oil on paper, 15 x 24.5 cm 

9

Beginners 

10 

oil on paper, 22 x 10 cm

The Siblings 


11

12

Fair Isle 

oil on panel, 41.5 x 36 cm 

13

A Girl is a Solitary Thing (S Barry) 

oil on paper, 27.5 x 19.5 cm 

14

15

16

Soft Prayer 


17

An Ordinary Life 

18 

oil on paper, 18.5 x 16.5 cm

In the Smallest Ways (I) 

oil on paper 15 x 23 cm 

19

20

In the Smallest Ways (II) 


21

The Promise 


22

23

The Beautiful Silence 

24 


It is a Joy to be Hidden and a Disaster Not to be Found (D. W. Winnicott) 


25

First Song 

26 

oil on paper, 18 x 18.5 cm

Last Song 


27

Dusk 

28 


Morning Has Broken 


29

30

Over the Storm 


31

Faded Kingfisher 


32

33

Forgetting 

34 


The Echoing Sky 


35

36

The Sea and the Shadows 


37

Poem (I) 

38 


I Dreamed the Peach Trees Blossomed Once Again (Rosamund Marriott Watson) 


39

Passing Storm 


40

41

The Wave 

42 


When Mum Was Young 


43

Adrift 

44 


Autumn Sun 


45

46

Yellow Costume 


47

Poem (II) 

oil on panel, 80 x 100 cm 

48

49

50

She Lowers Her Eyes 

oil on paper, 42.5 x 34 5 cm 

51

Gathering Light 

oil on paper, 42.5 x 28.5 cm 

52

53

Passing Thought 

54 


Glimmer 


55

56

Image Bearer 


57

Soft Days 

58 


A Quiet Nothing 


59

Her Life 


60

61

62

In the Waiting (I) 


63

In the Waiting (II) 


64

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Biography 

‘Poem’ is Wolfenden Brown’s sixth solo exhibition 

at Anima Mundi and is imbued with the artists 

renowned sensitivity to absorb the physical and 

metaphysical world that surrounds and precedes 

the present moment. Evocations of fortitude 

combine with vulnerability, resting beneath 

an ethereally layered and unmannered, yet 

luminous oily surface. The ritualistic painting 

process flows continuously from the artists’ 

subconscious, as a visual reflection of deeply 

felt experience and emotion, simultaneously 

confronting whilst offering the viewer comfort 

through the sharing of a profound and fragile 

truth.Figures often appear awkward, perhaps 

guarded, as if attempting to close the breach 

created through the wide eyed protagonist, 

offering a unique and singular window in to 

the soul of the subject, the artist and in 

turn, ourselves. 

Joy Wolfenden Brown is a British artist born in 

Stamford, Lincolnshire in 1961. She currently 

lives in Bude, North Cornwall. Wolfenden Brown 

graduated from Leeds University then completed 

a post-graduate diploma in Art Therapy at 

Hertfordshire College of Art & Design. She 

worked as an art therapist for ten years before 

moving to Cornwall in 1999. Wolfenden Brown 

has had a number of sell out 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, was first prize winner at the Sherborne 

Open in 2007 and won the Evolver Prize at the 

Royal West of England Academy in 2019. Works 

were acquired by the Anthony Pettullo Outsider 

Art Collection in Milwaukee with further works 

held in collections worldwide. Wolfenden Brown 

has exhibited internationally and is represented 

by Anima Mundi. 

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‘For my radiant Mum, 1928-2020, 

whose life was a beautiful poem’ 

67

Published by Anima Mundi to coincide with Joy Wolfenden Brown ‘Poem’ 

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or 

by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publishers 

Anima Mundi . Street-an-Pol . St. Ives . Cornwall . +44 (0)1736 793121 . mail@animamundigallery.com . www.animamundigallery.com

www.animamundigallery.com

Joy Wolfenden Brown 'Poem'

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