Jeremy Annear 2015
Judy’s collectors are numerous and her work followed and admired by a wide audience.
In spite of this, there is in common with all good artists, a paradox at the heart of her practice, to do with the certainty and doubt in the process of making painting.
Robert Hughes writes on Cezanne “The idea that doubt can be heroic, if it is locked into a structure as grand as that of the paintings of Cezanne’s old age, is one of the keys to our century. A touchstone of modernity itself”. . Judy is no exception to this. I am in awe of what I observe as her assured personal certainty with which she investigates her subjects and the accuracy and honesty of her highly personal observation, but this is offset against her uncertainty and doubts. Of course over time Judy has developed a maturity and confidence in her personal language, but she has never found or accepted an easy answer and never sought short cuts or devices. The fads of fashions and acceptance, in an increasingly post-modern and curatorial driven art world, pass her by in her pursuit for truth in her work.
Since 1987, nearly thirty years, I have ‘watched’ Judy, as her husband and partner and can speak with some authority!
Throughout her painting life, Judy has been engaged and concerned with the themes of ‘Landscape’ ‘Still-Life’ and in recent years ‘The Horse’. As an Australian by birth and upbringing, she was formatively and profoundly influenced by Australia’s great history of landscape painters, from Arthur Streeton at the turn of the 19th century, to later painters such as Arthur Boyd, John Olson and Fred Williams. Judy also holds indigenous aboriginal art in high regard.
When Judy arrived in England in her early twenties she quickly realised that she wanted to paint seriously and it was the landscape that became her first primary subject. This led to her eyes being opened to the great artists in the landscape tradition. Notably Turner and Constable, especially his small oil studies and, such French painters as Monet, Cezanne, Courbet, Corot and Daubigny. Later as her early language developed and her own expressive and painterly language emerged, she found in American and European expressionism, painters such as De Kooning, Diebenkorn, Corinth, Auerbach and De Stael. All these and more were influential in her early years.
During this time together we spent many happy hours looking at and discussing the ‘Great Art’ and architecture and travelling to see it, bringing back catalogues and books and revelling in them, it was a true love affair! Judy’s ability to engage with her subject is a truly impressive gift. Always painting in location, either in the elemental landscape, sometimes days at a time and in challenging conditions, on large canvas’ or series of small paintings and in the studio, working on Still-life or flower paintings. Whatever the subject, it is always treated with the same intent, to investigation through observation, and in so doing hone out the essential ‘energetic’ elements. To make the painted two dimensional surface work with such formal painterly concerns as light and dark, tonality, picture plane and construction. The narrative and topographical have never been part of her concerns. Judy seeks for the ‘iconic’ or ‘primal’ elements and it has often been observed that you can ‘smell the sea,’ or feel the moment, the sensory ‘other’ when standing in front of one of her paintings.
With the passing of the years there has inevitably been maturing in process and studio practice, Judy has incorporated other elements of visual research. In landscape for instance, Judy will now often record her subject with casual photographs, printed on low quality paper, and then either pinned on boards, or scattered on the studio floor. Whilst painting, these photographic remnants, act as an aidememoire and often become painted into the environment, out of which Judy makes paintings.
More recently Judy has become increasingly absorbed with Equus Caballus, and the iconic nature of the Horse. With a father who was a racing commentator on ABC radio between the wars and a brother with a ‘leg’ in two race horses in Australia, Judy has a very special familial and life connection with the subject. Through her encyclopaedic knowledge of her horses and their noble and historic lines, she has bred several of her own and this has now, inevitably, become incorporated into Judy’s oeuvre. Not the horse depicted in portrait, or as anecdotal friend, but as a fully present sentient being in art history. From cave painting to Delacroix, Stubbs and Degas to Marino, Frink and Le Brun, the horse is woven into our human history.
There is a purity and integrity in Judy’s work which others often seek to emulate. It is however and always will be inimitable and unique. As an artist myself I have been privileged to be gifted with such a partner.
PUBLICATION: Twofold: In Life and Art
£15 inc p&p