Jude Rose -
For the last two years I have been exploring the medium of watercolour and pencil on birchwood panels.
I love the tactile quality of working into the wood with thousands of pencil strokes to create a look of silk embroidery and the softness of tone that pencil provides. The varying grain of the birchwood adds mystery and texture in the unworked spaces.
I find this medium ideal for conveying my passion for the female form and to express the gentle strength of women, the goddess… the mother, the friend, the sister, the lover, the daughter.
My figures seem to take on a life of their own, seemingly from another realm. Perhaps heavenly bodies connecting the mortal and spiritual worlds. As I grow older, I cherish my friendships with women more and more, and my latest works show how deeply I treasure these relationships. This camaraderie is vital and even more so in semi-remote areas such as the upper mountains.
I am also continuing my love affair with oils, which provide a strong contrast to the soft pencil and which is the perfect medium to express my way of looking at the upper blue mountains. The depth from numerous layers of glazing in oils act as a parallel of richness and diversity of the environment up here. I am inspired by the verdant bushland and magnificent gardens full of topiary surrounding my home. I am fascinated by our desire to change the natural form of trees to create formal gardens for aesthetic effect. I enjoy adding the dynamic of simplistic geometric forms of rooftops and houses in contrast to the abundant soft rounded forms of trees and plants.
I am constantly sketching and compiling loose imagery in my mind from my walks in the bush and gardens in Leura, then painting in the studio from photos, drawings and from memory…. one area leading to another without preconceptions of the entire work. I find this spontaneity essential for my work to come alive.
I also draw and paint upside down, as it gives me a sense of symmetry.
I like to let the work flow, resulting in an intuitive process where I am a medium in a meditative state.
Most of these works have been produced in my Leura studio, and some from my studio on the South Coast of Sydney. These spaces provide for a time of deep reflection and exploration, and a focus on what truly matters to me, nature and creativity, self-expression, connection with land, and our ancestral heritage.
