Drawing to Mind #19, watercolour pencil on paper

Today let’s look at the artwork of Judy Southerland. Judy has a widely varied practice that encompasses a wide range of media and styles, and yet seems quite cohesive. The artist’s light and colourful compositions are often highly conceptual, rife with historical and personal references.

detail, Outlier, oil on fiberboard

Judy's latest series, Touch & Go, on her website

I enjoy the way that Judy tends to use a wide range of materials in a single work. One composition by the artist might include screen printing, painting, watercolour, collage and even bits of embroidery. The result is often a work of art that tells a complex narrative story, and invites the viewer to examine it more closely just to spot the different mediums that are being used.

Throughout her portfolio, Judy experiments with abstraction, figurative representation, and even some text art, occasionally throwing letter templates into a painting. I enjoy the works that she creates, such as in her Rules and Measures series, where multiple styles are combined and figures exist on an abstract ground.  

Long Gone (first version), acrylic, screenprinting, grommet, plastic mesh on canvas