Judith Dean

Judith Dean’s paintings question ways in which we look at images and art. Using her non-writing hand to reflect on control exerted by the conscious mind, Dean makes paintings that explore perspective and the singularity of the mind’s eye. Ideas of illusion - abstract, figurative, stylised and not - both inhabit and faux-frame the compositions as receding stages or galleries. Using the contingency of memory, found images from the Internet, personal photos, a 17th Century Chinese painting manual and through the practice of Hua Gong, Dean creates pictorial environments that reveal possibilities for exchange. 

We see walls, floors, ceilings; separated rooms emerge from blind alleys, dead ends and shifting horizons. The digital world is a multiverse of images in which our attention is manipulated to focus on what is narrow and commercially and politically expedient. By painting numerous images within one painting, Dean plays with our focus and purpose in looking, making us aware of both the mind’s natural control and society’s. The images relate to diverse cultural, environmental, historical and unknown sources and the painting process assembles these into different worlds of staged inevitability. 

Recent duo / group exhibitions include Room Constant, Kurtkubin, Mexico City, Mexico, Of Strangers, Shahin Zarinbal, Berlinand Stolen Hours, 12.26, Dallas, USA.

CV

Judith Dean ‘In Conversation’ (SoundCloud)