Judith Lodge | |
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| Born | July 25, 1941 Saint Paul, Minnesota, U.S. |
| Nationality | American, Canadian |
| Known for | Painting, drawing, photography |
| Movement | Abstract expressionism |
| Website | www |
Judith Lodge (born July 25, 1941) is an American Canadian painter and photographer who often explores how the two mediums play off of and inform one another. [1] [2] Her abstract portraits of memories, situations, events, and people are inspired by the unconscious, dreams, journals, and nature. [1] [3] She has worked in Vancouver, Victoria, Toronto, Banff, Minnesota, and New York, where she has lived for more than thirty years. [1] [4]
Lodge was one of four daughters born to Jean Lodge in Saint Paul, Minnesota. [5] Her father, James, was a chemist at 3M who enjoyed throwing pots in his free time and built a tiny studio in the basement of their home. [5] From as early as the fourth grade, she would bring a large pad of paper to class and tell people, "You make a mark, I’ll make a drawing from it." [5] She completed a Bachelor of Science at Macalester College in St. Paul (1963). [2] [4] She received a Master of Fine Arts from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (1965), where she was the only woman in a class of 12. [1] [4] [5] In the summer following her MFA graduation, Lodge made numerous trips to New York City, where she attended large Alberto Giacometti and Francis Bacon retrospectives. [5] These exhibitions were greatly influential on Lodge as they exposed her to approaches in art practice which were not being taken up by the Cranbrook school at that time. [5]
In 1972, Lodge moved to Vancouver, where she would spend the next decade, and began to work less figuratively than in earlier years. [3] [4] In Vancouver, she was friends with many women who were active in the women's movement. [5] She had her first entirely non-figurative solo exhibition in 1977 at the Surrey Art Gallery. [3] At some point, Lodge expected to return to figurative work but became preoccupied by the technical and aesthetic possibilities of the abstract format. [6] Her inspiration from nature is greatly credited to time spent on an island off the coast of Vancouver, which was partly owned by a friend. [1] Here, she explored landscapes and notions of water. [1] Although Lodge returned to the United States in 1980, moving to New York after finding Vancouver a discouraging place for artists, she continually aims to recreate the feeling of nature in British Columbia. [1] [6] Lodge notes how dreams and unconsciousness bring things to one's attention, and claims she began making painted mandalas out of nowhere before finding out she had cancer. [1] Following her diagnosis, chemotherapy, and surgery, Lodge became attracted to photographing trees which had been struck by fire yet were still alive, stating that she felt akin to them. [1] These damaged arbutus trees can be seen in the series Trees Hit by Lightening and Other Fires. [1]
Lodge's monumental abstract works, sometimes as large as 10’x16’, partially derive from 1950s abstract expressionism. [3] She typically utilizes a painterly style where thick layers and ropes of acrylic paint are built up in an almost three-dimensional topography, reminiscent of veins or sinews upon the surface of skin. [3] The texture is built up in three or four steps and certain areas may be reworked in the process. [3] Lodge often uses metallic gold, significantly in works from the "Life Jackets" and "Walls of Eden" exhibitions, symbolic of incorruptibility and sacredness, and confronting its audience rather than receding. [3] [7] She also tends to employ a strong sense of grid organization, as seen in the enormous works from "Walls of Eden." [6] [7]
"As a kid in a museum it looks like there is everything to talk about and paint, but it turns out that there are really only a few things. The seductive part about being a painter, I find, is that life is not a candy jar but rather there are a few central issues toward which one directs one’s life. I can remember being in high school when I first saw a reproduction of the Gauguin, […] Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going … well, there it was—profound philosophic content painted and then restated in words right on the canvas in the most direct and flatfooted war. I was astounded. Certainly, the notion that there are major primal subjects to be dealt with in the subconscious, in myth, in dreams, etc. is part of my painting heritage" - Judith Lodge [5]
Lodge's paintings demonstrate how the boundary between conscious and unconscious can be a permeable membrane. [3] Along with the world of nature and recalling images from life and the unconscious, other topics Lodge addresses in her work include, concerns with intersecting and overlapping areas of change; the eternal and the intangible; documentation of life energies, of what is seen, felt, and remembered; the notion of beauty as not fixed; and beauty tinged with terror and decomposition. [1]
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