Artworks
| Portfolio | Bio |
Judith Nelson received her MFA from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, taught there and exhibited in Honolulu. Then, from 1966-2003 taught (Yale, Cleveland Institute of Art, University of Iowa, RISD) and exhibited in New York and university and professional galleries in other cities. She returned to the Islands in 2003 and now lives and works on the North Shore of O’ahu.
When
not teaching, I worked a
Maine saltwater farm in intimate contact with natural forces, clearing
and burning, stacking, planting, harvesting. This spawned the
urge to collect natural materials from seasonal shifts of wear and
weather: barks, reeds, leaves, hornet nests, stems and pods that I
dried, sealed and organized by color, shape and texture. The
patterned surfaces of my paper works curled and twisted like mussel
beds or
glacial crusts, shards of artifacts, shreds. Then, pieces became
ribbed slabs
with raw, staggered forms. Centered depressions were
confessional, burial,
perhaps treasure or
messages. The earth was my source for works with a new identity, a derived
existence honored and preserved.
Here, Hawaii’s lush and suggestive tropical detritus reflects the archaeology and fragility of island life. I grind the island’s red dirt into pigment. Within the texture and constraints of printing it on handmade papers I form a cobbled, barely crushed relief of repetition and overlap, for a context of natural order with pods, fronds, stalks, leaves and seeds. The variations of sequential printing in these paintings create color and density shifts. Shapes are assembled by length, then folds or wraps challenge the limits of my resources. Compressions and weary edges threaten the stability of each piece, declaring the fatigue in dissolution, becoming a remnant of origins.
We see intricate patterns of cultures in museums …cross stitching, motifs wrought in color spangled weavings, for ceremony, clothing, ornament. Delicate boxes adorned with porcupine quills, shells, embroidery with threads fine as cobwebs. Many are tattered, rotted in glass cases, like the sacramental robes in the Cluny Museum’s monastery on Roman ruins. Or the Bishop Museum’s seeded and feathered adornments, kahili, tender with purpose and effort. Color, once dazzling and now faded. Paving and chamber shards. Reassembled monuments, temples, or the ruins and ashes of an 1812 Baptist Meeting House, razed by edict into clouds of lost history, except for what I retrieved and assembled in my studio downhill from the site. These tasks, applying one element at a time, become shrines to labor, patience and the endurance of art. If the memory of their purpose is diluted or lost, the painting will nonetheless touch our faith in the primal urge to create handwork that consoles, celebrates, inspires.
“Those things that do not suffer mortal death are swiftly conducted to their end by time.” (poet Pietro Aretino, Arrezo, 1512 )
Here, Hawaii’s lush and suggestive tropical detritus reflects the archaeology and fragility of island life. I grind the island’s red dirt into pigment. Within the texture and constraints of printing it on handmade papers I form a cobbled, barely crushed relief of repetition and overlap, for a context of natural order with pods, fronds, stalks, leaves and seeds. The variations of sequential printing in these paintings create color and density shifts. Shapes are assembled by length, then folds or wraps challenge the limits of my resources. Compressions and weary edges threaten the stability of each piece, declaring the fatigue in dissolution, becoming a remnant of origins.
We see intricate patterns of cultures in museums …cross stitching, motifs wrought in color spangled weavings, for ceremony, clothing, ornament. Delicate boxes adorned with porcupine quills, shells, embroidery with threads fine as cobwebs. Many are tattered, rotted in glass cases, like the sacramental robes in the Cluny Museum’s monastery on Roman ruins. Or the Bishop Museum’s seeded and feathered adornments, kahili, tender with purpose and effort. Color, once dazzling and now faded. Paving and chamber shards. Reassembled monuments, temples, or the ruins and ashes of an 1812 Baptist Meeting House, razed by edict into clouds of lost history, except for what I retrieved and assembled in my studio downhill from the site. These tasks, applying one element at a time, become shrines to labor, patience and the endurance of art. If the memory of their purpose is diluted or lost, the painting will nonetheless touch our faith in the primal urge to create handwork that consoles, celebrates, inspires.
“Those things that do not suffer mortal death are swiftly conducted to their end by time.” (poet Pietro Aretino, Arrezo, 1512 )