Tom Judd: Discovery

Tom Judd, Ships Passing, oil on collage on wood panel, 75" x 60." Photo credit: Dana Salvo. All images are courtesy of the artist and Etra Fine Art (Miami, FL.)

By Carolina Márquez

My work has always been about the passing of time, memory, the fleeting nature of life.

-Tom Judd (The Hermit Project , 2005)

How can one make tangible the passing of time? How can one capture the countless memories, images, and feelings experienced at a specific moment now past and transform them into something tactile, something present? For New Jersey-born artist Tom Judd, the quest to capture “the inherent quality of loss” has led him down a mysterious path of creation. His mixed-media approach, which involves layering paint, fabric, photographs, found materials, and other such objects onto canvas or wood, has resulted in the consolidation of various moments in time (whether real or imagined). His works are static time capsules that act as portals to imaginary worlds. His art can be regarded as an anthropological study of artist and viewer alike. Thus, in trying to re-create something from the remnants of the past, Judd has discovered a whole new world at his very fingertips.

Tom Judd’s inquisitive endeavors can be traced back to his early childhood years. Growing up in Utah, he and his friends would wander the woods, exploring every nook and cranny. Never hesitant to delve into the unknown, Judd recalls a particular time when he and his friends came across an abandoned house in the woods. They broke into it to inspect what its inhabitants had left behind. Judd’s mind was set afire by the sight of the empty bottles, fading magazines, and broken furniture left behind. Stories of who had lived there preoccupied his thoughts and sparked a curiosity that would lead him to develop what might be called a collective artistic dialogue.

The Hermit Project, 2005, mixed media installation, variable dimensions.

Tom Judd’s poetics results in contemplative works that evoke a strong sense of longing, of wanting to relive not through act but through emotion. Works like The New World (2007) bring to mind navigation of the unknown and the experiences of those around us. In the background of a serene virgin landscape, a ship approaches the shore, and one can almost hear the distant cry of “Land ho!” Yet Judd’s work feels familiar, as if what hangs before us speaks not of some other time but rather of a vague memory that is now just creeping back.

Judd’s ability to translate both personal experience and communal relatability comes through best in his collage work. The multiple layers of map cutouts and text, wallpaper, appliqués, paint, and other collected materials portray a natural evolution highlighting the eclectic nature of each piece. Each layer hides a common thread of recollections that runs deep within us, making the viewer search among the soft hues and delicate painterly strokes for a place of his or her own.

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The New World, oil on collage on wood panel, 72” x 192.”

Tom Judd’s artistic career spans nearly thirty years, during which time he has had five solo shows in New York as well as solo museum shows at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Salt Lake Art Center, and the Nevada Museum of Art. His work has been shown extensively throughout the United States and Canada and is represented in several major corporate and museum collections. An exhibition of Tom Judd’s paintings is on view at Etra Fine Art in Miami, Florida (50 NE 40^th St., 33137 / www.etrafineart.com )

Carolina Márquez is an art critic and writer based in Miami.