TEXTURED DREAMS ON THE MIND'S TONGUE

Several years ago I began to explore textures, actually gluing things onto the canvas, using items readily available.  I loved the patterns and textures of old laces, crochet, tattings, weavings--hand woven linens, I bought them at sales furiously.  I began to use the tattered pieces in my work to create texture and to form a "scribble" base.  I also used natural found textures; desert rock, sand and shells.  My preliminary gluing sessions are free form and I love to see what random patterns emerge--what pops out.  When I paint, I go in to "a zone" and my right brain takes over and--magic happens.

Like Dubuffet, I also believe that the subconscious mind is the key to art, and that all worthy art has a great deal to do with delirium.  Ed Paschke and the Chicago Imagists, the Expressionists, De Kooning and Francis Bacon were major influences on my art.  I agree with Messager who said "being an artist means incessantly healing ones wounds and opening them again in the process".

My paintings are automatic, accidental, surreal, and dreamlike.  By using "women's" things--hand done textiles, desert and sea earth textures and vibrantly colored earthy people, I am exploring what it is to be female, what it is to be human.  I am celebrating our strengths and singing our praise, but also, through the "Ravished Faces" series, empathizing with our extreme vulnerability.  I also explore the issues of environmental damages, friendships, aloneness, and multiculturalism.  I want you to be able to feel my work just by laying your eyes on it and I want my colors to be so rich that you can taste them.Max Ernst speaks for many of us when he says "I am looking to a universe of disturbing imagery that lies on the tip of the eye's and mind's tongue".

After living in the Chicago, Illinois, and teaching art for 34 years, I  now have my own studio in Cave Creek, Arizona.  The following sites should allow you to contact me, as well as to view some of my current inventory of paintings and pastels.  I will try to update the website often so that the paintings that you are looking at will be available.  If you have any suggestions or ideas on how my website can be improved please contact me by email by going to the CONTACT ME site.

Call JUDY BRUCE
 (480) 437-9995