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 and making still remains at the core of her practice. She started painting soon after graduating and has been a practicing artist ever since, exhibiting widely in London and Europe.

Miriam 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.

She has exhibited regularly and internationally, including many solo exhibitions, and her work has regularly featured in the BP Portrait Award exhibition and at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters annual exhibitions. She won first prize at the BP Portrait Award 2018

Miriam’s works are rich in ideas and compositions and she aims to describe a heightened sense of the real in her works, slowly developing the sense of space, light and mood in her paintings through many layers of paint. She aims for psychological depth in her portraits, as well as aesthetically successful compositions.

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  from £15,000

28 x 20 inches  from  £25,000

40 x 28 inches from £45,000

Pastel

28 x 20 inches from £12,000

40 x 28 inches from £20,000

Drawings

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