‘Pneuma’ is an unusual solo exhibition by Bude based artist Joy Wolfenden Brown.

This collection of intuitive and intimate oil paintings is infused with sensitivity and shows an emotional view of the world.

Suggestions of strength combined with fragility, vulnerability and solitude rest beneath the ethereally layered and unmannered surface of each work.

The body language often appears awkward, guarded, as if attempting to close the breach created through the wide eyed protagonist, offering a window in to the soul of the subject, the artist and in turn, ourselves.

Joy says, “In the earlier stages of this body of work, the process felt like excavating or scratching away at an archaeological dig, as if searching to uncover ancient fragments or hidden treasures from the past.

‘Pneuma’ is a Greek word meaning breath or spirit.

“Breathing and a feeling of openness around the heart, of being born aloft and carried or wooed into a spacious place, are all feelings which have accompanied me and been channelled into this body of work,” explains Joy.

The pale shades lend extra fragility to this ethereal and moving collection.

‘Pneuma’ is at Anima-Mundi in St Ives until September 1.