Meet the Artist // Kathleen Judge

Can you give us an introduction about yourself and your background?

My name is Kathleen Judge. I’m a visual artist working across different mediums such as printmaking, drawing, animation and video projection. My life in arts has run on a couple tracks at once; Commercial arts such as storyboarding, animation, illustration, print and video work while simultaneously pursuing independent artworks in print, drawing and more recently with painting and sound.

As an artist, how would you say you’ve grown since the start of your career?

I’m not sure it’s possible to create art without growth and change. Whether through ideas, concepts, craft and skill. Time with materials and ideas are essential for that growth. Recognizing and respecting my intuition has been one of the essential tools of growth that helps me creatively. When I was younger my intuition was there but I didn’t trust it and often disregarded that instinct. My confidence to trust my instincts and intuition has strengthened over time.

When you say you’re coming back into painting and going in and out of animation, does that have to do with your intuition as well?

Yes, I’d say that’s part of it. For example, years ago I stumbled on a closed junkyard in process of being dismantled and moved from Wyoming to another state. Everyday I went and drew the heaps of metal and debris, the engines strewn about, the stacked cars. I loved it. The machines, landscape, wind, the lines and energy of the crumpled metal and parts sticking out and stacked all over. The scraggly feral goats, dog and rabbits that follow me around the junkyard from a distance. An extremely rural environment. After that I returned to the city and shifted from drawing cityscapes and buildings to finding metal scrap yards to draw from.

As the years passed I moved away from the junk and scrap yards and almost forgot about the work and experience. I don’t know how something so important to a person can drift away and be forgotten—but that happened. Years passed and I found I’d drifted away from large-scale drawing and the junk and scrap metal yards.

When Covid happened, I began to look back at old sketchbooks and drawings I’d done years before. I rediscovered my original Wyoming artwork and it reminded me of the excitement and insight the landscapes of metal had revealed to me. That’s when I decided to seek out local junkyards again and to see what happens. I started spending a lot of time biking to different scrap metal yards to do on-site paintings and sketches. I’d also make audio recordings of the environmental sounds I heard while painting, which were mostly large groups of motorcycles and birds. The streets had that Covid emptiness that occurred all over the world. It was at this time that I’d say my intuition led me back to the places I’d loved but had forgotten about since that first Wyoming junkyard. Originally I had worked in charcoal but now I’ve switched to ink and acrylic paint. There’s a boldness and ‘you can’t erase it’ quality and intention with ink that I really like.

Returning to the junkyards and scrap metal yards and large-scale painting and drawing has recentered me to the gesture that originally captivated me back in that original Wyoming junkyard—the lines and energy of the metal and the emotional color of each particular site.

What inspires you?

Light and lines, marks. That’s one reason I love printmaking – with woodcut or scratchboard, when you’re scratching the ink off of the board, it gives you sharp lines and dynamic marks. That’s also the appeal in animation, especially abstract animation. I love the ephemeral quality of motion, light and the time element within animation.

You’ll be here for three more months – what are you planning to do?

This next segment of the residency I’ll keep on creating large-scale ink and acrylic paintings and continue the animation experiments, I started, which build out from small close-up sections of the larger drawings. Light is a feature within a number of the drawings and sculptures which I’ll continue to develop. I’ll expand and explore more of my Berlin field recordings and see how they may integrate into the animation/video projection artwork.

On a community level, It’s been fantastic getting to explore the vast and varied arts communities in Berlin. Also, to have the space to live and work among artists from Berlin and all parts of the world has been a real privilege and a great experience.