Judith Biography - 3

Biography — the 1980s

Judith at Judith and John’s bookshop at
the Old Stables, Camden Lock - early 80s

Early in the 1980s I experimented with etching and I was also back to oil on stretched canvas because I worked in a couple of studios rented from SPACE. The first was in Wapping Wall. I look at the renovated warehouses there today and marvel at how our drafty studios have metamorphosed into Manhattan Loft-style apartments. The second set of studios is still in existence in Hackney: Victor House, Richmond Road. I began painting a few large paintings – but not so big that they couldn’t be hung on the walls of ordinary homes; I like my work to be “domestic” – one of these was The Golden Years Return, 60"x 40", 1983.

Inspiration came from a Giorgione composition done 500 years ago called The Three Philosophers. It is in landscape mode with a dark cave, Plato’s cave most probably, on the left. I chose to borrow the right side of the painting, changing a few things like having one of the “philosophers” holding a Picasso-type painting.

Once in a while an event in the outside world hits me with such force that I have to make a painting or two in response. The Chernobyl nuclear reactor melt-down happened in 1987. One of the resulting paintings was The Awakened , 14"x 20", 1987. It is based, with changes of course, on a photograph taken of local people as they were being tested for radiation. In the actual photograph they looked sunny and brave. In mine their faces are stressed, as though they know something of their future. Another painting I did in response was Plato’s Cave, 21"x17", 1987. The firemen are based on firemen who had to go in shortly after the melt-down.

Also in the 80s I did several covers for The Women’s Press.
Would like to do more of that sort of thing.


	Biography — the 1980s Judith at Judith and John’s bookshop at the Old Stables, Camden Lock - early 80s Early in the 1980s I experimented with etching and I was also back to oil on stretched canvas because I worked in a couple of studios rented from SPACE. The first was in Wapping Wall. I look at the renovated warehouses there today and marvel at how our drafty studios have metamorphosed into Manhattan Loft-style apartments. The second set of studios is still in existence in Hackney: Victor House, Richmond Road. I began painting a few large paintings – but not so big that they couldn’t be hung on the walls of ordinary homes; I like my work to be “domestic” – one of these was The Golden Years Return, 60"x 40", 1983. Inspiration came from a Giorgione composition done 500 years ago called The Three Philosophers. It is in landscape mode with a dark cave, Plato’s cave most probably, on the left. I chose to borrow the right side of the painting, changing a few things like having one of the “philosophers” holding a Picasso-type painting. Once in a while an event in the outside world hits me with such force that I have to make a painting or two in response. The Chernobyl nuclear reactor melt-down happened in 1987. One of the resulting paintings was The Awakened , 14"x 20", 1987. It is based, with changes of course, on a photograph taken of local people as they were being tested for radiation. In the actual photograph they looked sunny and brave. In mine their faces are stressed, as though they know something of their future. Another painting I did in response was Plato’s Cave, 21"x17", 1987. The firemen are based on firemen who had to go in shortly after the melt-down. Also in the 80s I did several covers for The Women’s Press. Would like to do more of that sort of thing.