Judy Child: Revelations by Bruno David Gallery

J U DY C H I L D

Revelations

bruno david gallery

JUDY CHILD Revelations

May 4 - June 17, 2017 Bruno David Gallery 7513 Forsyth Boulevard Saint Louis, 63105 Missouri, U.S.A. info@brunodavidgallery.com www.brunodavidgallery.com Director: Bruno L. David This catalogue was published in conjunction with the exhibition Judy Child: Revelations Editor: Bruno L. David Catalog Designer: Thomas J. Fruhauf Design Assistant: Claudia R. David Printed in USA All works courtesy of Bruno David Gallery and Judy Child Cover image: Finale, 2017 (detail) Acrylic on canvas 20 x 20 inches (50.8 x 50.8 cm) Copyright ÂŠ 2017 Bruno David Gallery, Inc. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of Bruno David Gallery, Inc.

CONTENTS

INTERVIEW by Tim Schwartz with Judy Child AFTERWORD by Bruno L. David CHECKLIST AND IMAGES OF THE EXHIBITION BIOGRAPHY

AN INTERVIEW by Tim Schwartz 2

Tim Schwartz: For the past many years your paintings have been noted for vivid color and multiple layers. How did it all start? Judy Child: It started when I first stood in front of a Mark Rothko painting. I was mesmerized by how he subtly shifted his color palette to create such beautiful luminous paintings. I was excited and delighted to see something that had such a powerful effect on me â&#x20AC;&#x201C; I was hooked. Shortly thereafter, I left the textile program I was enrolled in, found a studio and began to paint. I found I enjoyed the challenge of mixing colors and have made quite an extensive catalogue of color charts over the years. If you do something day in and day out you have to challenge yourself to make what you are seeing more complex, and color is a part of that. Even if you have an innate sense of color, it can always be developed further. TS: So, in addition to color, texture has grounded your work. JC: I have always loved the materiality and texture of paint, and how the paint feels as it goes down onto a surface. I like the immediacy of painting, and I am happiest when I am covered with paint, moving it around, having a conversation with what I am creating. I am always searching for a visually dynamic surface and have employed a number of techniques to get it. I would look in the hardware store for unusual tools and then would drag them through wet paint creating unique marks. Or, I would scrape and sand through dried paint layers, an excavating process. I wanted to bring a sense of movement to the painted surface. But now of course I am creating the dynamic surface by pouring the paint. 3

TS: Many of these recent paintings are pure white. How did you come to the decision that color needed to be removed? JC: Well, it happened almost by accident. I was pouring various kinds of white paint onto canvas in hopes of creating a smooth surface to work on. As some of the paints dried, cracks began to form and that really intrigued me. I knew I was seeing something new, more complex with endless possibilities. These cracked surfaces were far more compelling to me than the other paintings in my studio. At that point I thought â&#x20AC;&#x153;Okay, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve got to move out of my comfort zone and let go of the color for now and go all in exploring what I can do with the white paint.â&#x20AC;? More importantly, I began to think of them as paintings in and of themselves. TS: When you say complexity do you mean texture? JC: Yes, everything about them was more complicated especially the texture, along with the size and the scale of the cracks. I would also leave raw canvas at the edges. Once I removed the color, all of those variables carried more weight within the painting. TS: So, now the painting has come off the wall. It is in your hands, and you are moving the canvas while pouring the paint.

JC: Yes, I think I have been going in that direction for a while. I had been letting go of my system of using brushes and gestures, and I was doing a lot more dripping of ink and paint while rotating the surface underneath. This naturally led me into the pouring of paint. I am not using any tools or saying “I am going to put a mark here or there”. Gravity is moving the paint and I am responding to that movement, that flow – there is a choreography to it and I enjoy that. TS: Could you consider the painting a recording of a performance? JC: Oh, that is an interesting thought. I like the idea of a performance for one. There is a graceful balletic quality to pouring and moving paint on the canvas. My movements are a physical response to the flow of the paint. After the paint dries, I look to see which of my movements correspond to what I’m seeing. For example, what happened when I let the paint make a thick pool, or what movement caused long cracks to form all running in one direction? I have often thought of this work as choreographic notations, so I guess you could say that it is a recording of a performance. TS: With that in mind do you think you can look at a painting and imagine a painter’s body movements? JC: I can have a feeling of how the artist positioned his/her body while creating his work. Willem De Kooning used large expressive movements when he made his big brush strokes. By contrast painting an Indian or Persian miniature, the artist’s movements had to be more constrictive and probably took a lot of breath control as the brushes were so fine. I personally cannot imagine working in such a restrictive way, but yes I think you can imagine the movements an artist used by looking at his/her work. 5

TS: Is there an aspect of science involved in the technique that you have developed? JC: As I think about it, you could use the word “science” if you mean experimenting and developing a system to predict results. So much of the formation of the cracked surface was out of my control. I needed to figure out what I could control. I experimented with drying times, canvas weight, studio humidity and paint thickness, and I finally came up with a combination that gave me what I wanted to see. I think this exploration comes naturally to me, as I have a degree in science and worked in a hospital laboratory at the beginning of my career. My husband is a scientist, so, my life is surrounded by thinking of possibilities, the “what ifs”, and thinking outside the box. The two of us have shared many conversations about the commonality of the creative process between scientific exploration and studio practice. TS: Has it always been the case that you want to be able to develop repeatable techniques? JC: For me, being immersed in the creative process and venturing into new territory can be both exhilarating and anxiety producing. I explore the tension between these two feelings. I think the trick is to find a balance between the two and not let one overwhelm the other. It is the tension between the two that drives me, brings me into the studio everyday. I think of these repeatable techniques and color charts as a vocabulary. It frees me to be engaged in the painting without worrying about the process. I want my work to push me to grow as an artist and I want what I create to be interesting to me as well as to the viewer.

TS: You made all of these all white paintings with unique surfaces. Tell me why you started adding color back into your paintings? JC: It was actually refreshing not to be distracted by color, to simply enjoy the texture, size and the scale of these white paintings. To me, they were complex in their simplicity. But I began to think that maybe there was more to tell. What would happen if I could subtly highlight the cracks by pouring colored paint beneath the white and let the process of the paint drying dictate how much of the color would be revealed. TS: In looking at your work the cracks and texture resemble landscapes. Is that something you have thought about or something you were considering when you first started creating these pieces, that they could be read as landscapes or maps? JC: Yes, I thought the same when I first saw the cracks forming, actually many things came to mind, definitely of the natural world. The patterns formed are intrinsic to any fluid that has dried. But over time I came to feel the surfaces were still active, an implied movement. I began to see them as neural pathways, cell synapses firing, a snapshot of my brain processing. Back to the idea of landscapes, I guess you could say they are the visual expressions of my interior landscape. TS: Do the titles of your work refer to this inner world? “Talk To Me”, “Meeting of the Minds”, “ I Go Where You Go”?

JC: I have been involved in psychoanalysis for many years now and the process has given me access to places inside of me I never knew existed. The titles speak to the dialogue between my conscious and unconscious. How do I bring things to light that have been unknown for such a long time? It is quite an experiential process, talking, feeling and responding. I felt the need to capture these internal conversations and also the need to express the complexity of this intimate process. TS: As we end, can you give me a sense of where your work is going in the future? JC: I feel there are so many avenues I have yet to explore with this new technique. We spoke earlier of how choreography and movement are integral to this work and I look forward to the physical challenge of working on a larger scale while still maintaining the integrity of the surface. I am also intrigued as to how to further integrate color into the work without losing the uniqueness of the white surface. The possibilities are endless and I want to pursue them all.

Tim Schwartz is a Los Angeles-based artist, writer, technologist, and activist who makes works of art focused on technology, information, privacy, and how our culture absorbs changes in these areas. He received a BA in Physics from Wesleyan University and an MFA in Visual Arts from the University of California, San Diego. Schwartz co-organizes “LA Cryptoparty “with Taze and Noname. This text is one in a series of the gallery’s exhibitions written by fellow gallery artists and friends.

AFTERWORD by Bruno L. David 10

I am pleased to present an exhibition titled “Revelations” by Judy Child at the Bruno David Gallery. This is the artist’s first solo exhibition with the gallery. As a painter, Judy Child, has always been fascinated by how versatile paint can be. This new series of paintings explores that versatility. She left behind brushes, palette knives and, most importantly, color. By stripping away color and narrative, she focuses on the natural beauty of serendipitous and complex configurations of the paint. The physical act of pouring and manipulating the paint plus the effects of gravity and the drying process determine the outcome of her paintings. In these new paintings, she searches, explores and anticipates something she wants to see but has not seen before. Each day she goes to her studio excited to see what her process reveals. The unpredictable journey of the paint creates the fractures and informs the natural and dynamic surfaces. Judy Child lives and works in St. Louis and has shown her work locally, regionally and nationally. She received her B.S. from Colby Sawyer College and attended Boston University. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts individual artist grant. Support for the creation of significant new works of art has been the core to the mission and program of the Bruno David Gallery since its founding in 2005. I would like to express my sincere thanks to Tim Schwartz for his thoughtful interview. I am deeply grateful to Thomas J. Fruhauf, who gave much time, talent, and expertise to the production of this catalogue. Invaluable gallery staff support for the exhibition was provided by Cleo Azariadis, Ashley Lee, Charis Schneider, Yihuang Lu, Thomas Fruhauf , Peter Finley, and Viola Bordon.

CHECKLIST & IMAGES OF THE EXHIBITION

In Between I (diptych) 2017 Arcylic on canvas 24 x 24 inches (60.96 x 60.96 cm)

In Between II(diptych) 2017 Arcylic on canvas 24 x 24 inches (60.96 x 60.96 cm)

Lost in Thought

2016 Arcylic on canvas 30 x 30 inches (76.2 x 76.2 cm)

Beyond Words

2016 Arcylic on canvas 30 x 30 inches (76.2 x 76.2 cm) 17

Verso

2017 Arcylic on canvas 16 x 20 inches (40.46 x 50.8 cm) 18

Meeting of the Minds 2017 Arcylic on canvas 30 x 30 inches (76.2 x 76.2 cm)

Come Back

2017 Acrylic on canvas 16 x 16 inches (40.65 x 40.65 cm) 20

Come Back (detail)

Passage

2017 Acrylic on canvas 16 x 16 inches (40.65 x 40.65 cm) 22

Lyric

2017 Acrylic on canvas 16 x 16 inches (40.65 x 40.65 cm) 23

Touchstone 1(diptych) 2016 Acrylic on canvas 24 x 24 inches (60.9 x 60.9 cm)

Touchstone 2(diptych) 2016 Acrylic on canvas 24 x 24 inches (60.9 x 60.9 cm)

Talk To Me

2017 Acrylic on canvas 30 x 30 inches (76.2 x 76.2 cm) 26

Talk To Me (detail)

I Go Where You Go

2017 Acrylic on canvas 40 x 40 inches (101.6 x 101.6 cm)

Imprint,

2017 Acrylic on canvas 16 x 16 inches (40.65 x 40.65 cm) 29

Judy Child: Revelations (Installation view) 30

Judy Child: Revelations (Installation view) 32

Blue Conversation

2017 Acrylic on canvas 20 x 20 inches (50.8 x 50.8 cm)

Blue Conversation (detail)

Never Mind

2017 Acrylic on canvas 20 x 20 inches (50.8 x 50.8 cm) 36

Falling Through 2017 Acrylic on canvas 20 x 20 inches (50.8 x 50.8 cm)

Proclamation

2017 Acrylic on canvas 20 x 20 inches (50.8 x 50.8 cm) 38

Memory lapse

2017 Acrylic on canvas 20 x 20 inches (50.8 x 50.8 cm) 39

Next Time

2017 Acrylic on canvas 20 x 20 inches (50.8 x 50.8 cm) 40

One last Thing

2017 Acrylic on canvas 16 x 16 inches (40.64 x 40.64 cm) 41

Song Space

2017 Acrylic on canvas 16 x 16 inches (40.64 x 40.64 cm) 42

Song Space (detail)

Time Writer

2017 Acrylic on canvas 16 x 16 inches (40.64 x 40.64 cm) 44

Word Play

2017 Acrylic on canvas 16 x 16 inches (40.64 x 40.64 cm) 45

Unseen

2017 Acrylic on canvas 20 x 20 inches (50.8 x 50.8 cm) 46

Finale

2017 Acrylic on canvas 20 x 20 inches (50.8 x 50.8 cm) 47

Stop Motion

2017 Acrylic on canvas 20 x 20 inches (50.8 x 50.8 cm) 48

I Am Here

2018 Acrylic on canvas 20 x 20 inches (50.8 x 50.8 cm) 49

Soliloquy

2017 Acrylic on canvas 16 x 16 inches (40.64 x 40.64 cm) 50

Final Thought

2017 Acrylic on canvas 16 x 16 inches (40.64 x 40.64 cm) 51

JUDY CHILD Lives and works in Saint Louis, Missouri EDUCATION 1978-80 Program in Artisanry, Boston University, Boston, MA 1976 Auckland Society of Arts, Auckland, New Zealand 1971 B.S., Colby Sawyer College, New London, NH

ONE-PERSON EXHIBITIONS 2017 2002 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1993 1992 1990 1989 1987

Revelations, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO (Exhibition catalog) New Work, Elliot Smith Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO Spatial Patterns, Elliot Smith Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO New Paintings, Elliot Smith Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO New Paintings, Elliot Smith Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO Paintings: Pattern, Texture & Color,â&#x20AC;? Marian Graves Mugar Art Gallery, Colby Sawyer College, New London, NH Recent Work, Elliot Smith Contemporary Art. St. Louis, MO New Paintings, Elliot Smith Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO New Paintings, Elliot Smith Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO New Work, Elliot Smith Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO New Work, MJF Studio Arts Gallery, St. Louis, MO New Works, Mossa Center, St. Louis, MO Recent Work, Louis D. Beaumont Gallery, Maryville University, St. Louis, MO

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2017 2008 2007 2005 2004 2001 2000 1997 1996 1995 1994 1992 1991 1990 1989 1988

OVERVIEW_2017, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO Grand Center Artists, PSTL Window Gallery, St. Louis, MO Art for a Lifetime, Drive Agency, St. Louis, MO Collectors Choice, St. Louis Artist Guild, St. Louis, MO Size Matters, Elliot Smith Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO ART, St. Louis Repertory Theater, St. Louis, MO Summer Exhibition, Elliot Smith Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO St. Louis: The City Series, Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Cedar Rapids, IA Group Exhibition, Elliot Smith Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO Absolutely Abstract, Elliot Smith Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO New Pier Show, Art Chicago 1994, Chicago, IL 10th Anniversary Group Show, Elliot Smith Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO Abstraction, Morton J. May Gallery, Maryville University, St. Louis, MO Art St. Louis VIII, The Exhibition, St. Louis, MO The Last Picture Show, Elliot Smith Gallery, St. Louis, MO Small Worlds, Elliot Smith Gallery, St. Louis, MO Artists Choose Artists, St. Louis Center, St. Louis, MO Art St. Louis V, St. Louis Artists Coalition, St. Louis, MO 1st Annual St. Louis Artists Juried Exhibition: Spotlight on Drawing”,” St. Louis Gallery of Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO Art St. Louis IV,” St. Louis Artists Coalition, St. Louis, MO

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Schwartz, Tim Marks, Kerry Cooper, Ivy Schroeder, Ivy Smith, Brian Daniel, Jeff Melrod, George Bellos, Alexandra Riley Parr, Debra Smith, Brian Ferring S., Carol Ferring S., Carol Duffy, Robert W. Harris, Paul A. Sauer, Georgia Schmitendorf, Karen

Bruno David Gallery Publications, Interview, December 2017 “Bruno David’s New Exhibition Explores Politics, Movement, and Mindscapes,” HEC-TV, May 2017 “Judy Child: New Work,” The Riverfront Times, December 2002. “Judy Child: Spatial Patterns,” The Riverfront Times, May 1999. “Judy Child: Spatial Patterns,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, May 1999. “Abstract Artist Makes Her Evolutionary Move,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, July 1998. “Openings,” Art and Antiques, November 1995. “Symbol Pleasures,” The Riverfront Times, March 1995. “Similarities Belie Artists’ Diverse Paths,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, March 1995. “A Visit to the Studio of Judy Child,” Close-Up: Art St. Louis Magazine, Summer, 1994. “In Review,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, November 1993. “Honor Award Winners are a Diverse Lot,” Honor Awards, St. Louis Post Dispatch, February 1993. “Work of Three Artists are a Study in Contrast,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, February 1992. “Ordinary Subjects Mask Wealth of Abstraction,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, March 1991. “The Creative Touch,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 1990. “Child’s Works Display Visual Vocabulary,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, December 1990.

AWARDS & HONORS 1998 1996

Juror/Curator, Honors 1998, Art. St. Louis, St. Louis, MO Fellowship Recipient in painting, National Endowment for the Arts and Mid-America Arts Alliance

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO Landmark Bancshares, IL Peat, Marwick, Main and Co., Indianapolis, IN Centerco Properties, St. Louis, MO Davis & Davis, St. Louis, MO Ingersol Publications, St. Louis, MO Midland Group, St. Louis MO Emerson Electric, St. Louis, MO Anheuser-Busch, St. Louis, MO BlueCross BlueShield, St. Louis, MO

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ARTISTS Laura Beard Heather Bennett Lisa K. Blatt Michael Byron Bunny Burson Judy Child Carmon Colangelo Alex Couwenberg Jill Downen Yvette Drury Dubinsky Damon Freed Douglass Freed Ellen Jantzen

Michael Jantzen Kelley Johnson Howard Jones (Estate) Chris Kahler Xizi Liu Bill Kohn (Estate) Leslie Laskey James Austin Murray Yvonne Osei Patricia Olynyk Gary Passanise Judy Pfaff

Charles P. Reay Daniel Raedeke Tom Reed Frank Schwaiger Charles Schwall Christina Shmigel Thomas Sleet Shane Simmons Buzz Spector Cindy Tower Ann Wimsatt Monika Wulfers