Miriam Escofet

Miriam Escofet was born in Barcelona in 1967 and moved to the UK in 1979.

The daughter of artists, she grew up surrounded by the rich visual lexicon of art.

She studied 3D Design at Brighton School of Art. The making process was her first love and is still at the core of her art practice. She started painting soon after graduating and has been a practicing artist ever since, exhibiting widely in London and Europe.

Escofet arrived at portraiture after years of exploring many other subject matter and brings to it ideas and skills she has developed over the years in her paintings. She paints mainly in oils, her technique is extremely detailed, applying many layers and glazes to achieve a sense of space and mood.

Her work has been selected several times for the BP Portrait Award exhibition and for the Royal Society of Portrait Painters annual exhibitions. She won first prize at the BP Portrait Award 2018

“I have explored many ideas and subject matter in my work, but the unifying passion in all my paintings is exploring and describing a sense of space, volume, atmosphere and detail, arriving at a kind of hyper real expression of the subject matter.

These same pictorial concerns govern when I am engaged in a portrait, of course the likeness and character of the sitter must come first, but I am as interested in the spatial and psychological depth in the work, as well as an aesthetically successful composition.”

I like to work from life if possible, but also use photography for practical reasons, to document the sitting and allow me to expand compositional possibilities further in the studio. As my paintings take months, they are evolved in the studio.

I like to meet the sitter in their natural environment as it offers a further insight into their character and allows for the inclusion of personal objects in the composition. I am happy for people to input their compositional ideas and equally happy for them to leave that entirely to me.

After the first sitting, I work out a composition for the portrait and prepare a drawing for the client’s approval. Sometimes several possibilities emerge for the final work and I like to explore them all.

Once the composition is agreed I begin the painting in my studio. I might need to come back to the sitter for further life sittings, if they have the time to commit to them,  or more photographic references. It takes a few months to complete a painting.

I am happy to travel to my sitter.

I am not currently registered for VAT.

PRICES

Oil
20 x 16 inches £15,000

28 x 20 inches £25,000

40 x 28 inches from £40,000

Pastel

28 x 20 inches £12,000

40 x 28 inches £20,000

Drawings

From £3,000 for a charcoal or graphite drawing to £15,000 for larger more complex mixed media works