About

Following a career as an academic Jude relocated to Edinburgh in 2010. Between 2011 -2016 she studied painting and contemporary practice at Edinburgh College of Art and Leith School of Art.

Her work incorporates sculptural form as well as two dimensional pieces. Unifying her practice is a fascination with inscription, mark making and excavation. Reflecting her interest in materiality she uses a wide range of traditional and non traditional materials including; oil paint, graphite, gesso, size, pigments and varnishes.

Drawing is the medium through which she researches and collects material. She starts by making detailed observational studies in the field, and then in the studio she moves into a more abstract interpretation drawing on her emotional and sensual response to the subject. Intrinsically focussed on materiality and process driven Jude welcomes and yet seeks to control the accidental within her work, balancing an expressive energy with a sensitivity to detail.

Her subject matter varies but she is drawn to objects and natural forms which reflect the forces of nature and the history which has shaped and marked them. Her work is inspired by familiar locality and place. Living beside the sea and rowing on it most mornings she seeks to explore beneath the obvious qualities of water to something more abstract and enduring as well as engaging with matter that lives in the sea such as Laminaria – common kelp; or Artic Islandica – ocean quahogs or clams; equally her work can be inspired by the way in which the land and earth is marked and scarred. What these different subjects share is a forceful yet fragile presence which makes them powerful and compelling.